Trials of a Sith
by yukimoda
Summary: Follows the trials and tribulations of the Sith Rathe Dresal. Son of a revered Sith captain, Rathe must prove himself worthy of his father, but with danger and enemies everywhere can Rathe even survive to adulthood? Reviews welcome.
1. Arrival

AN: This story is based off of The Old Republic but it will not be following the stories of The Old Republic, specifically the Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor storylines. As there isn't much about what it's like as a youth in Sith society, that I was able to find, I shall be taking a few liberties as I believe it was similar to Spartan society in that they were trained under harsh conditions and pitted against each other. At least for the Sith Warriors anyway.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything Star Wars and if I did you can damn well bet the prequel movies would have been better and Anakin wouldn't have whined so much.

Huge thanks to my betas for betaing for me :D

-x-

Yellow eyes narrowed as a small red hand came up in an attempt to protect them from the sun. Rathe Dresal, the owner of said eyes, looked about at the mountains of sand and dried earth stretching as far as he could see as he walked down the ramp of the transport ship. The only settlement he could see was the one he was walking down the ramp towards, said settlement was a combination of square stone buildings and tent like buildings. High above them, the sun shone in the clear blue sky. The boy wrinkled his nose, running the back of his hand along his forehead to clear it of the sweat that had already formed there, as he looked about the settlement he'd be staying in for the next few years. This was Dromund Fels? The great training center his father told him hundreds of stories about? The place his father said truly separated the weak from the strong?

Ahead of him about thirty children milled about the landing pad as they waited for the instructor to tell them where to go. Amongst the thirty children, only five aside from him were Sith, all the others were Zabrak, Human, Twi'lek, Rattataki, and there was even a Chiss child. The red skinned boy with ridges along the bridge of his nose, chin, and cheeks found himself examining the blue skinned boy for a bit longer than the others. He'd never been this close to a Chiss before, having only caught the occasional glimpses of a few when a colleague or superior of his father unexpectedly contacted him. His mother was quick to usher him out of the room when that happened. But from how often he'd heard his father grousing about how he wished there were more of the amazing blue bastards on his ship, he gathered that they were a good ally to have. The Sith boy, found his curiosity piqued even further as he examined the other boy. The Chiss was not only the tallest of the group, but he seemed to be the oldest of them as well. While it was rather curious that someone who was obviously older than them would just be receiving their training _now_ the Sith boy's thoughts were instead focused on figuring out how to get the much larger and stronger boy as his ally. His father often talked about how his greatest and most loyal allies were the ones whom he'd met at Dromund Fels.

"Keep moving!" A voice behind him barked and a large hand connected with his back, knocking him out of his reverie and pushing him forward. Rathe barely managed to keep from falling on his face as he found himself pushed forward. As he caught himself, the boy turned and glared at the large pale man behind him.

"How dare you! Do you know who my father is?" The boy demanded his eyes flashing with anger and indignation over being pushed by someone. This anger and indignation increased when the large man began laughing, his rotund belly quivering with each guffaw that emerged from the man's plump lips.

"Oh aye, I know who he is, Amevar Dresal, Captain of the Enforcer, and one of the "heroes" of the battle of Bothawai." The heavyset man replied as he got his laughter under control, a sadistic grin beginning to bloom under his thin mustache. "And I know who you are. You're Amevar Dresal's brat, Rathe." The smile got wider. "Let's see if you're as much of a failure as your brother was." The boy glared up at the taller and larger Sith for mentioning his older brother. "Let's see if you can last longer than he did." The story of Rathe's older brother was one that many knew, much to the shame of his family. As the eldest son of a high ranking officer, Maier had great expectations of becoming a high ranking officer himself, if he passed his training and proved he was strong enough that is. Unfortunately for the Dresal family, Maier hadn't lived up to these expectations and died during his first year of training. He hadn't been the only one to perish, but he'd been the only one of importance, and thus the shame was even greater. That shame was the very thing Rathe hoped to erase to show that his father and everyone else that he could live up to those expectations.

Rathe glared at the fat human once more before he made his way down the ramp to join the other children. Though they were all of different races, sexes, and in a few cases ages, all of the children had one thing in common; they'd all displayed more interest or talent in wielding a blade and learning how to fight than learning how to master the force. Despite knowing that all of them were here for the exact same thing, Rathe's lip curled in disgust as he got a closer look at the other children. Some were obviously runts, while others, mainly humans, already had a cybernetic implant or two to correct an injury or a possible birth defect. They wouldn't last long here.

"You look like you smell something foul."

Rathe jumped slightly at the unexpected voice next to him, and felt an unfamiliar flash of embarrassment as he looked up at Chiss boy he'd been examining earlier. In his mind he could hear his father's voice chiding him for not being more aware of his surroundings and being too caught up with observing the weaknesses in others. But at the same time, the desire to make an ally of the blue skinned boy increased. Someone who could move about silently would be of great use. "Smell no, but I see a few things that offend my eyes."

The blue skinned boy raised an eyebrow at the red skinned boy. "Would those offenses happen to be people like me?" At Rathe's blank look he continued on. "Those of us who are not pure-blooded Sith like you."

The Sith boy shook his head. "Not entirely no, while I would prefer for there to be more pure-blooded Sith like me, I know that not every soldier in the Imperial forces are Sith." Rathe looked away from his conversation partner and focused upon one of the humans with cybernetic implants, this one having a cybernetic eye. "I was offended by the sight of humans with obvious weaknesses such as hers. If one already has an implant then either they caused themselves enough of an injury to need one or they were born with a defect that caused them to be unable to use one eye." He returned his attention to the boy standing next to him. "I realize that the implant will probably give her a slight advantage as she'll be able to see in the dark with it and analyze others. But it also gives the rest of us an immediate target to go for."

The Chiss boy fell silent and simply looked at Rathe for a few moments as he thought over the Sith's words. As he thought them over, Rathe began to feel a bit uncomfortable with the solid red eyes looking at him. "I suppose you're right." The blue-skinned boy finally said. "But remember sometimes even those who appear weak survive while those who appear strong die."

Rathe blinked in confusion at the other boy's words but before he could ask for clarification, the other boy walked away from him. Still feeling highly confused, Rathe vaguely noticed the fat instructor from before ordering them into the closest building. Upon entering the building, Rathe immediately wished he was back outside. Outside the temperature had been extremely high, but at least it had been a dry heat. In here the air was stale, stagnant, and humid. Within minutes of being inside the building, Rathe could feel his hair beginning to become damp as beads of sweat rolled down his face and the back of his neck. As the children wiped sweat off their brows and neck, and cautiously eyed the marked off area in the center of the room, a larger group of older children consisting of about three times as large as the group Rathe was currently in, entered the room from a different direction. As the last child from the new group entered, the fat instructor as well as a purple skinned Twi'lek woman who had black tattoos and a few scars covering her lekku and a slim man of average height, with red hair and a scar that bisected a milky white eye moved into the center of the marked off area.

"Now that we're all here, I believe it's time for the new students to get a crash course of what it will be like here." The thin human began. "Some of you might have received training from your parents and some of your parents might have told you what training here would be like, but I assure you, none of you will truly understand what the training here is like until you've witnessed it firsthand."

He turned and gestured for his overweight associate to continue. "When I call your name make your way to the center of the fighting area and take your weapon." Rathe's eyes narrowed as the instructors beady eyes landed upon him. Whatever the fat man was planning he was ready for it. "Kasal Traael" The Twi'lek and skinny human standing next to the large instructor gave their fellow instructor a slightly confused look as one of the larger boys, a human with dark skin, blond hair, and green eyes, from the older group stepped forward. "Rathe Dresal." Rathe kept his face blank except for a slightly raised eyebrow at the instructor as he stepped forward and took the practice blade held out to him. As he moved to face his opponent, he noted that the confused look left the instructor's faces and was replaced by a look of understanding.

As Rathe and the older human took their places on the marked off area of the room, Rathe saw the human smirking at him and sent him a smirk of his own. The human could smirk all he wanted, Rathe would knock it off his face soon enough.

"FIGHT!" The fat human bellowed.

Both boys raced forward with their practice blades held aloft. They met each other in the center of the marked off square, with a crash as their blades locked together. Immediately, Rathe realized he was at a disadvantage as the human was taller and bigger than him, thus he had to hold his blade at an upward angle and fight against both the other boy's strength and gravity. He growled faintly as he jumped backwards and dodged to the side when the human lunged at him.

"Running away?" The human taunted. Rathe scowled faintly, his irritation with the other boy growing as the two boys circled each other. He charged the bigger boy, ducking under the blow aimed at him to strike at the boy's leg. Unfortunately, despite the blow striking its target, it didn't knock Kasal off his feet and instead earned Rathe a knee to the face. The impact sent pain racing throughout his entire body and he fell back, clutching at his nose, immediately forgetting his father's teachings of always being on guard. As he fell back, the dark-skinned boy slammed his training blade into his ribs. Lesson quickly remembered, Rathe ignored the impulse to clutch at his ribs as he rolled away from his opponent. The blood flowing from his nose left a trail along the floor as he rolled and dodged out of the way of the incoming blows. Though not all of his dodging was successful, he eventually managed to get back onto his feet. Not that it accounted for much, he was still bleeding from the nose and mouth and he was forced to slow his movements due to a number of Kasal's blows landing on his right knee.

"Alright, enough fooling around." Kasal said as he changed his stance and became more serious. Rathe barely had time to bring his practice blade up when the human charged at him and unleashed a flurry of blows that were faster and harder than any of the previous ones he'd been hit with. The Sith boy tried to defend himself, but found soon found himself unarmed as Kasal continued kicking and hitting him with his practice blade. A particularly vicious kick to the knee sent him sprawling onto his back and Rathe's supply of oxygen was cut off as a boot pressed down on his throat. He fought and tried to pull Kasal's boot off his throat, but he was weakened enough by his injuries and blood loss that he could barely move the heavy boot an inch. "You're pathetic." The human spat as he removed his boot and walked away from the fallen Sith.

"Well done Kasal!" The fat instructor praised, applauding as he moved towards the victorious boy. "For your reward, you shall be given what would have been Rathe Dresal's rations." He grinned evilly down at said boy who was struggling to get up. "That is how things work around here. You win and you get to eat, you lose and your rations are given to the person who beat you. Now," he roughly hauled Rathe upon to his feet and shoved him back towards where the new students were standing. The force of the push was great enough that Rathe would have fallen onto the ground once more had he not been caught by the Chiss boy he'd been talking to earlier. "Let's see what the rest of you are capable of."

Rathe grunted faintly as he pushed away from the blue skinned boy, while he was grateful for the other boy's help, his pride was smarting too much to accept help from anyone. He slowly made his way to the back wall, and sat down against it as the Twi'lek instructor called out the names of the next two fighters. His eyes became unfocused as he watched the fight begin and the world faded away into darkness.


	2. Welcome Home?

Sasha Naruto: As of right now I don't know if there will be any pairings as I shall be using all original characters. But I can't completely say no to the possibilities of a pairing, it just might not happen for a while since Rathe is about 8 at the moment.

Disclaimer: Still don't own anything Star Wars so you can't blame me for the re-release of Star Wars Episode 1 in 3-d.

-x-

Chapter 2: Welcome Home

Blindingly intense pain shooting through his ribs forced the darkness to recede and Rathe to awake with a cry. "I see the sleeping beauty is awake." The Sith boy glared up at the fat instructor smirking down at him, as he wrapped his arms protectively around his ribs. For a second it looked like the instructor was going to strike Rathe again, but instead the instructor backed off.

"Alright, all of those who won their fight line up next to Instructor Akiva and she'll give you your rations." He paused and glanced at Rathe who was struggling to get to his feet. "And for those of you who lost, Instructor Trevin will lead you to the sleeping quarters."

Rathe glanced about as he finally got up onto his feet. It was extremely easy to figure out those who'd lost and those who'd won. Both groups were injured, but the losers had a look of disbelief and anger about them while the victors had looks of superiority and unfiltered pride on their faces. Surprisingly, while most of the students Rathe had arrived with moved towards the red haired man, a few of the new children who had won their matches, including the girl Rathe had been sneering at earlier. Already injured, the pure-blooded Sith's pride was further injured at the sight of the girl with the cybernetic eye standing in line waiting to receive her rations. A light shove brought Rathe out of his reverie, and he turned with a glare towards the person who'd shoved him. The glare faltered a bit when he saw it was the Chiss boy from earlier.

"You lost, too?" He asked in surprise as he took in the other boy's appearance. The other boy's natural blue skin helped hide some of the damage, but the dark purple bruising about one of his red eyes and the corner of his mouth, along with the red blood flowing from his nose and gathered about his split lip, made it obvious he'd received quite the beating.

"Aye, though not as badly as you." Rathe's skin darkened slightly in embarrassment at the calmly stated words. As much as he'd tried to ignore it, he'd noticed that none of the other losers had any trouble staying on their feet, nor did he suspect they had passed out from their injuries. The blue skinned boy eyed the Sith for a moment as Rathe briefly lost himself in thoughts of how his father would be so ashamed of him and how he would turn out just like his brother. "Still you did fairly well considering it was your first fight."

"I still lost." Rathe hissed, his eyes narrowing in anger.

"Did you really think you'd win?"

When the Sith boy gave him a look of surprise that was quickly transformed into one of rage, the blue skinned boy continued on. "You just arrived here; he's been here for a couple of years and has experienced fights like these ever since he first arrived. Again did you really expect to beat someone who's been here for a couple of years?"

"No," Rathe finally said after a moment. "I had hoped to do much better than I did." It was hard for him to tell with the Chiss having solid red eyes, but Rathe could have sworn the other boy had rolled his eyes at him. "So who did you lose to?"

"That Sith boy there, Mathieu Chi'thiac." Rathe's eyes followed at the blue skinned boy pointed towards an orange-skinned Sith boy who amicably chatted with Kasal and two other humans, a boy and a girl.

"He was faster and more skilled than me. Though I did get in a number of hits. Those two who are with them are Calle Kurn and Talia Aryss. From what I can tell those four are the strongest of everyone here. Or rather they were the four who beat their opponents the quickest."

"Either that or Calle and Talia just had a really easy fights." Rathe murmured as he made a mental note to watch their matches next time to see if they really were as good as his potential ally thought they were.

"Come on; let's go line up with the others." The blue skinned boy began to turn towards the line of the defeated, but stopped when a hand touched his arm. At his raised eyebrow, Rathe withdrew his hand from the other boy's arm.

"I'm Rathe Dresal." He said as he held his hand out between them.

The Chiss boy eyed the red hand for a moment before taking the hand in his own.

"Jehis'ari'lhane," He chuckled faintly as the two shook hands. "You just can call me Saril."

"Dresal! Jehis'ari'lhane! Get over here!" Instructor Trevin shouted from the doorway as their hands dropped. The two boys hurried over to the redheaded man, who frowned thoughtfully at Rathe for a moment before he led the line of injured boys and girls to the sleeping quarters.

As they stepped outside, Rathe was torn between feeling relief for no longer being inside the humid, sweltering building, and wondering how long the fights had taken as he noticed the almost completely set sun. The relief instantly faded as he caught sight of the extremely run down building the instructor was leading them too. This building, just like the building with the arena in the center, was made of stone. But unlike the other building, this one had numerous holes and cracks in the walls and a single door made of wood that looked so dried out and old it was surprising it didn't crumble under Trevin's fingers. Upon entering the building, Rathe noted that the holes and cracks continued onto the ceiling, allowing the light from the setting sun shine inside the building. In fact there were so many holes and cracks in the walls, that Rathe was shocked to see that there weren't any on the floor. The building itself was made up of a single long narrow hallway, with long rows of doors on either side of the hallway spaced a few feet apart from each other. This was where they were going to be living?

"We're living here?" A Sith girl in the middle of the line said, echoing Rathe's thoughts as the older students began moving down the hall, towards specific doors on either side of the hall.

The redheaded instructor came to a sudden stop, and turned around, walking back to the child who'd spoken. The girl gulped visibly as silence fell over the group as they waited for the man to say something. She began to fidget a bit as he simply stood there, saying nothing.

"Yes, THIS is where you will be staying here." He said finally as the other children began to uncomfortably shift from foot to foot. "This building right here is where all of you will be staying so long as you're at this facility. Just like every past generation, including some of your parents did. Just like future generations of Sith, will continue to train here. Your children may in fact train here." He gave her a slight smile that sent a shiver down Rathe's spine. He was glad he wasn't receiving the full force of that smile. "That is of course if you survive long enough to have children. Not everyone who comes here leaves here alive," Trevin's eyes scanned the line of children in front of him, before stopping on Rathe. The smile widened slightly. While the fat instructor obviously hated him, this man made him feel like he was locking eyes with a Sleen; a Sleen that wasn't sure if he would make a good meal or not. "As I'm sure some of you know all too well." The Sith boy's eyes narrowed as he glared the one eyed man. Amusement briefly appeared on the red headed man's face before he looked away. Though he tried to keep a tough appearance, Rathe let out a silent sigh of relief and was able to relax now that the blue and milky white eyes were off him. "Now before any of you think about complaining to your parents about the 'horrid' conditions you'll be living in, I should inform you that only the instructors have access to any communication systems at this facility. Also, let me remind you that since your parents were the ones who sent you here, they already know what it's like here. So even if you were able to communicate with them, they wouldn't lift a finger to help you off this planet. The only ways you'll be leaving Dromund Fels is either in a body bag as a disgrace to your family or by boarding the transport in four years, proving that you have what it takes to survive."

As the redhead finished speaking, the door to the compound opened and Instructor Akiva entered, raising an eyebrow at the sight of the children and Trevin standing in the middle of the hallway. "Get side tracked?" The small hallway was quickly filling as the victors of the matches joined the losers of the matches in the hallway.

"I was just explaining to the new students what they should expect while here Akiva." The man gave her a smile that was almost friendly in comparison to the one Rathe had received. "Perhaps you'd like to explain to them their living arrangements to them?"

The purple Twi'lek woman nodded faintly as she turned to look at them, ignoring the way the victors were silently taunting the losers with their rations while the losers glared sullenly at the ones who'd beat them. Rathe himself, glared at Kasal while the smirking human pulled out a piece of dried meat and began eating it as he moved towards his room. "All of you will be staying here for the duration of your stay, and all of you shall be staying in your own individual rooms." She gestured further down the hallway as the last of the older students closed the doors to their rooms. "All of you are expected to stay in your rooms from the time the sun goes down in the evening until when the sun rises in the morning. If any of you are caught outside of your rooms when you're not supposed to be, you will be severely punished. And if you run away, thinking you'll somehow find another settlement or transport you will not be looked for. Get lost, you will not be looked for. And if you return you will be punished for trying to run away. Understood?" The children nodded emphatically when she looked at the expectantly. "Good." She began walking further down the hallway when a tentative hand rose.

"E-excuse me I-Instructor." A very nervous looking Twi'lek who paused for a moment to glare at the human and Zabrak giving him faintly encouraging looks next to him. "W-when will we eat?"

"You, and your friends, obviously were not paying attention to Instructor Uthyn. Or none of you were able to figure out what his words really meant," Trevin said in a chiding tone. "You will only receive food rations after you win a match against an opponent. You will however receive a small amount of water twice a day. There will be no other times we will give you food, so you had better hope those of you who lost win a match once in a while or else you won't eat." He gave them another slight smile that made Rathe shiver. "Right then, when we call your name and point to a room, that will be your room."

The children silently watched the teachers as they moved down the hallway, knocking on doors. When there wasn't a reply from inside, they opened the door and if the room was empty, they'd call out a name. If it wasn't empty they'd yell at the occupant for being asleep or not answering the knock on their door. The two were more than halfway down the hallway when Rathe's name was called. As he moved to enter his room, the Sith boy felt a bit uncomfortable being so far from the door. If anything were to happen, he would have great difficulty getting to the door and the relative safety of the compound outside. His discomfort faded a bit when Saril's name was called immediately after his. The two exchanged glances as Saril made his way to his room. In this new environment they would need someone to watch each other's backs. Especially when Kasal and his three friends were so close to their rooms. The Sith boy tugged open the door and paused in the doorway.

'There has to be some kind of mistake.' He thought as he looked about the tiny room in front of him. The only thing inside the room was a thin mat on the floor and a threadbare old blanket that had hole in it. Surely there was supposed to be a bed in here? Rathe stood there for a moment in surprise as he took in the small room and sparse furnishings. The surprise faded as he walked further into the room, letting the door close behind him, and realized that after everything he'd seen, been told, and experienced, finding out he'd have to sleep on this tiny mat was not all that surprising. He, carefully, flopped down on top of the mat and blanket, staring blankly at his ceiling. He watched, through the holes in his ceiling, as the sky grew darker and darker.

The moment the sun had fully set, was the moment it finally cooled down some. For a brief moment, it was a welcome change from the blazing heat of the day, then Rathe began shivering as the temperature dropped further, and the sweat that had been clinging to his skin and dampened his hair froze as his teeth began to chatter. He shivered as he quickly scrambled under the blanket, which did little to keep the cold out. Curling up as best he could to keep himself warm, Rathe began to realize why exactly his brother had failed and died during his first year here. The question was, would he too die here?


	3. Training Begins

AN: Before I get a bunch of messages from people about how Sith use their anger to fuel their abilities with the force, I want to address a couple things.

1) In this chapter this will be the first time Rathe has ever used the Force before now he's never had any training in using the Force whatsoever as such he doesn't know that anger fuels his abilities, he will, however, learn this in the near future.

2) I know that the force is an internal and external thing, but Rathe doesn't know that. As far as he's concerned the Force is a completely external force. Much like with his anger fueling his powers, Rathe was never taught anything about the force being an external and internal thing, so this will also be something he discovers in the near future.

Again huge thanks to my betas for doing their thing :D

-x-

The severe cold of Dromund Fels at night combined with the injuries Rathe had received from Kasal proved difficult for him to ignore long enough to sleep. The few times he had been able to drift off, he'd more often than not been jolted awake in agony as he'd shifted enough in his sleep for one of his injuries to come in contact with the mat or floor. The few times he hadn't been woken by his injuries, he was woken by the sound of howling, very loud howling that was very close to the compound, from Dromund Fels's native occupants. After that, Rathe had given up trying to sleep and instead laid there shivering while he blankly stared up at the sky through the cracks in the ceiling. Since he could walk, his father had trained him, but the defeat he'd experienced in the practice arena had shown him something he hadn't realized before - his father had been going easy on him. Granted he'd never once won a practice bout against his father, but the injuries he'd received at the hands of his father hadn't been nearly as bad as the ones he'd received earlier in the day.

'Why would father go easy on me?' he asked himself as his eyes narrowed faintly. Why, when they both knew he was his father's only remaining chance at his reputation recovering after his brother had died a disgrace in this very training facility? His eyes widened for a moment as a thought hit him, before narrowing, his yellow eyes burned with anger. What if his father had gone easy on him because he didn't think he'd be able to take it? Could the great Captain have thought his only remaining child was so weak and so pathetic that he wouldn't be able to handle a bit of pain? For the first time in his life, Rathe felt hatred and resentment instead of pride and admiration towards his father.

'Bastard probably thought I would die here too!' He thought viciously as he flopped onto his side. A combination of a hiss and a groan escaped him as the move caused his damaged ribs to slam into the solid stone floor beneath his thin mat. Clutching at his ribs, Rathe rolled back onto his back, grimacing when the movement caused another, slightly less intense, burst of pain from his ribs. As the pain ebbed away, Rathe truly began to examine how his father had trained him. While the training he'd received at the hands of his father had been harsh, to say the least, his father had spent a majority of his time and effort training his older brother, and it hadn't been until last year that his father had started saying anything about sending him away to this very training facility. At the time Rathe had simply thought that maybe his mother had somehow convinced his father to let him stay home a few years longer and go easier on him since he was the baby of the family, but now that he thought about it, it truly seemed like his father hadn't really expected much of him or had simply expected more from his brother. Rathe's hands balled into fists as for the first time in his life, he viewed his treatment at the hands of his father without the rose colored glasses he'd been wearing all of his life.

So deep in thought was the boy that he barely noticed when the sky he could see through the cracks in the ceiling began to lighten, but the sound of a door opening in the hallway he immediately noticed. Curious as to who was in the hallway, Rathe slowly sat up, coming to a stop with a hiss of pain as his ribs cried out in protest. A few moments later, while he was trying to figure out a way to stand up without making his ribs cry out in protest, a loud shrill sound filled the air causing Rathe to jump in surprise. A second hiss of pain escaped him as ribs throbbed once more, he quickly smothered it though as he scrambled to get on to his feet and out into the hallway as he heard the doors to the rooms all around him opening. Upon opening the door, Rathe was vaguely surprised as he realized that the sound in the hall was slightly louder than it was in his room. 'So these doors are here for more than just show.' The Sith boy had been sure that the only thing the weak looking pieces of wood were good for was to give the girls, and the self-conscious, the illusion of privacy. Well either that or to be forged into makeshift weapons if someone were attacked in the sleeping quarters. Though just how helpful a weapon made out of wood that looked fragile enough for someone to break by just rapping their knuckles against it was suspect. Rathe's musings about the doors came to an end as he stepped out into the hall, noting with more than a little bit of envy that a number of the other losers looked rather groggy. The Sith boy straightened up a bit when he noticed the slim human instructor standing at the end of the hall, holding some sort of object up to his mouth, with the ghost of a smile on his lips. Once all of the children had entered the hallway, Instructor Trevin pulled the sonic whistle away from his mouth, effectively making the noise stop. "Morning sleeping beauties," he said as he looked about at the children. "Head out into the training yard, get your water, and wait for me to instruct you further."

The students began moving towards the door as the instructor exited the building. As they moved, Rathe used the moment as an opportunity to observe the other children. His eyes narrowed and he felt irritation rise within him as he noted that the winners of the previous day's bouts and the less injured losers looked very well rested. In fact some of the less injured losers were still wiping sleep from their eyes and yawning. 'Bastards' Rathe hissed at them in his mind. The only ones who didn't look well rested or like they'd just woken up were the other losers like himself, who sported numerous injuries and bags under their eyes. "Judging from the looks you're giving our well rested peers, I'm guessing you didn't sleep well last night either."

Rathe glanced to his side, eyes widening slightly when he caught sight of Saril's heavily bruised face, in addition to having a swollen lip, the blue-skinned boy's eye was almost completely swollen shut and he had a number of dark purple bruises covering his face. His new ally of sorts looked like hell, and if Saril looked that bad, Rathe could only imagine how bad he himself looked. Not that it would be all that difficult to figure out how bad his face looked, just from the throbbing alone he knew that his nose was broken and his cheeks were covered in bruises, and swiping his tongue across his lips let him know his lip was split in a couple of places. For a moment, Rathe wondered if the other children might think he was an easy target because of his injuries. He fought back a smile as he thought of how he'd prove them wrong. Not only would he prove them wrong, he'd also earn his rations. "No I didn't." The red-skinned boy said as he broke from his thoughts of fights. "What about you? Were you able to get any rest?" It was difficult to tell if the darkened skin around the other boy's unswollen eye was because of bruises or because of a lack of sleep.

"Some." Was the only response he received as they stepped outside into the compound. A chill went down Rathe's spine that had less to do with the cool weather and more to do with how eerie the compound looked in the early morning light. Compared to how harsh and bleak everything had looked under the midday sun the previous day, the compound and surrounding area looked serene and almost...soft. The soft almost dreamlike state made Rathe feel very uncomfortable as all of the danger he'd felt seemed to now be hidden. Hidden and waiting to attack him when he let his guard down. The compound was completely silent except for the sounds of yawning and the feet of children as they moved over to where Instructor Trevin stood near a well.

"Line up single file to get your water." The red-haired man said even as the older students were moving to line up in front of him. "After you've drunk your water, place your empty cups on the table next to me." The human's eyes narrowed slightly as his voice gained warning tone. "Anyone seen trying to get a second drink of water will be punished severely." The sky slowly brightened as the students moved one at a time to get a cup of water. When it was Rathe's turn, he quickly snatched his cup from the instructor, fearing that the slim human might be in cahoots with the fat Sith and dump it out. The ghost of an amused look appeared on the man's face as Rathe stepped out of line and lifted the cup up to his lips. The cup only contained a couple mouthfuls of water, but as the cool water ran down his throat and filled his empty stomach with something other than air, the red-skinned boy sighed softly in relief. As the last of the children received their water, and placed their cups on the table as instructed, the purple Twi'lek instructor approached them.

"I hope everyone's well rested," she said placing her hands behind her back. Now that Rathe was closer to her, he could see that in addition to her black tattoos and the scars he'd previously seen, the Twi'lek woman had a number of other scars along her body. Scars he'd only previously seen littering the bodies of willful slaves. A wave of shock rolled through him as he realized that one of his instructors was a former Sith slave. Quick glances at the other new arrivals revealed that they'd all just realized the same thing as him, they had a former, possibly vengeful, slave in charge of them. "Because now you're going to use the force to heal yourselves." The newer students looked at her in excitement, moving towards her as the older students spread out along the compound. "What are you looking at me for?" The Twi'lek asked as she looked at the new students gathered around her. "Get to it!" Rathe and the other students looked at her in confusion, how were they supposed to do that when they didn't even know how to use the force as a weapon yet?

"You haven't taught us how to do that," a Sith girl said with a sneer. "How can we do something if we haven't been taught how to do it?." A few of the other students nodded in agreement, though Rathe refrained from joining them. The look in their instructor's eyes at the condescending tone was enough to tell him that agreeing with his fellow Sith was a bad idea.

"You want me to **_teach_** you?" Instructor Akiva sneered as she looked down her nose at the girl who'd spoken. "Why would I do that, when no one is ever just handed anything. In order to learn or gain anything you must earn it yourself." She looked around at all of the new students, her gaze halting when it fell upon Rathe. "Though I suppose I could teach you brats something." She said with a smirk as she moved towards the injured boy. "Before you heal yourself, you must first set any broken bones, otherwise they won't heal properly." Quick as a snake she reach for him, catching his injured nose between her fingers, and popped his nose back into place. Unable to stop himself, Rathe let out a cry of pain as his hands shot up to his nose, gently holding it as the Twi'lek instructor moved away from him with a cold smile. "Now go figure out how to heal yourself!" This time the new students quickly moved away from her, possibly fearing what she might do to 'help' them.

As Rathe moved away to an empty part of the courtyard, the pain radiating from his nose lessened as his anger at being humiliated by the former slave grew. How dare she use him to make an example out of when he hadn't said or done anything! Rathe sank so deep in his anger and humiliation, he didn't notice someone approaching him until they spoke. "How's your nose?" The Sith boy jumped and balled his hands into fists, relaxing when he saw it was just Saril.

"How do you think it is?" He grumbled at his pseudo ally, earning an amused look from the other boy.

The two didn't say anything else as they sat down, Rathe stifling a hiss of pain as his ribs protested the action, on the sandy ground underneath them. How did one go about using the force to heal one's self? That was the question Rathe asked himself as he placed his elbow on his knee and his chin in the palm of his hand. He supposed that if he were to focus the force towards an injury of his with the intent of healing himself, it would do it. But he didn't know how to draw the force to him. Or if merely having the intention of healing himself would make it happen. Maybe he had to focus the force in a certain way in order for it to heal him? He was tempted to ask Saril what he thought, but refrained from doing so. He'd already been humiliated enough by having Instructor Akiva using him in a demonstration, he didn't need to add to his humiliation by appearing weak in front of the person he was beginning to see as a possible ally. There wasn't however any weakness in glancing over at the others to see if they'd figured it out. Amber-yellow eyes darted about as the Sith boy glanced at the other children. A number of the older children were kneeling on the ground with their heads bowed, while others stood with their legs and arms spread, others still were seated , and a few of the new students were doing the same thing as him, looking at the others, trying to find some sort of hint. Glancing to the side, Rathe looked at the other boy sitting next to him, his eyebrow rising minutely when he saw the other boy sitting with his legs crossed, his hands in his lap, and his head bowed. Dimly Rathe remembered overhearing his father instructing his older brother on meditation. For the second time that day, as well as his life, Rathe felt anger and contempt for his father and his father's obvious favoritism for his brother. Not once had his father ever instructed him on how to meditate, something he probably needed to know, instead he'd been left to his own devices or left in the company of his mother. Rathe blinked faintly as a thought hit him, what if he could use meditation as a way to at least find a way to tap into the force. If he were able to do that, then all he'd have to do would be to figure out how to channel it into healing himself.

Shaking his head to clear it of all thought of his father and the lack of training his father had given him, Rathe shifted so he was sitting cross legged with his fingers threaded together in his lap. He closed his eyes as he tried to recall everything he'd overheard his father say when instructing his brother on how to meditate properly. All he could recall though were a few snippets of his father telling his brother he needed to relax and breathe evenly. Doing his best to keep his anger at his father in check, Rathe began attempting to meditate. He sat there for a few moments, slowly breathing in and out, before his eyes snapped open and a scowl appeared on his face. Nothing was happening! He shook his head again as he remembered the instructors words about gaining power, it needed to be earned, and if it needed to be earned it wouldn't come easily. In other words he needed to be patient. Something that probably wasn't going to happen unless he ignored the anger he felt towards his father, the fat bastard, Instructor Akiva, and Kasal. Pushing aside his anger, Rathe closed his eyes as he attempted to meditate once more. As he sat there, he began concentrating less on the world around him and focusing more on listening to the sound of his own breathing. In and out. In and out. The steady rhythm of his breaths helped him slowly relax. As he relaxed, the Sith boy began reaching out with his mind trying to find any hint of the force around him. At first, he couldn't feel anything, but instead of getting frustrated or giving up, he simply kept looking. Though he was keeping his anger locked away at the moment, Rathe's feelings of resentment and his desire to become better than his father or anyone else seemed to think he could become fueled him on, giving him the push to go on.

As he continued blindly groping for the force with his mind, Rathe felt something at the very edge of his mind, something that almost seemed like it wasn't there or something he could have imagined, almost like someone saying something just at the edge of hearing range. In fact he was almost certain he had imagined it, creating something to fulfill the need to find or connect with the force, when he felt the thing again. Throwing all caution to the wind, Rathe mentally reached for where the feeling had emanated from. The closer he got to where the feeling had come from, the stronger it became, until finally, he grabbed a hold of a tendril of it with his mind. The moment his mental fingers wrapped around the tendril, his mind was filled with sensations and his body felt energized, it felt like the whole universe had opened up to him and given him power he'd never dreamed of having. This must have been the force! This wonderful feeling that now filled him had to have been the force. His fingers fell apart and curled into his palms as he envisioned using this new power to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies.

'But first I need to use it to heal myself.' He thought as his injuries reminded him of the needs of the present. Concentrating once more, the Sith boy tightened his mental hold on his connection to the force, and attempted to guide it down towards his injured ribs. Warmth spread along his body as the force bent to his will and moved towards his ribs. With a feeling of satisfaction, Rathe maneuvered the force around his bruised ribs and waited. And waited. As he began to realize nothing was happening, Rathe's feelings of satisfaction melted away as his anger and frustration broke free. It wasn't fair! He'd created a connection to the force, and had been able to manipulate it some with his mind. Why weren't his ribs being healed? Frustrated at having come so far only to not be able to figure out how to heal himself, Rathe unconsciously began to increase the pressure against his ribs. A flare of pain, however, quickly alerted him to what was happening and he lessened the pressure. Only when he did, he noticed that though his ribs still hurt, they didn't hurt as bad as they had. Could that have been what he'd needed to do? Use the force to tightly squeeze his ribs forcing them to heal? Just as he was about to make a second attempt at healing his ribs, someone touched Rathe on the shoulder.


	4. Training Continues

Once again, huge thanks to my betas :D

-x-

Amber-yellow eyes snapped open, quickly focusing on the person in front of him. "We need to get up." Saril said as he straightened up. Rathe's cheeks darkened in embarrassment as he quickly rose to his feet. As he rose, he found that his ribs really had been healed some as they merely throbbed in pain rather than screamed like they had earlier. Looking around the Sith boy felt utterly surprised when he saw the sun had not only finished rising, but was halfway up into the sky. How had he not noticed the time passing? Or the air getting hotter around him? Had he really been concentrating that much he hadn't noticed anything else? His face flushed faintly as he thought of how humiliating it would have been if someone other than Saril, had roused him. "Thanks." He muttered to Saril as they moved to where the students were lining up, falling in line behind the other newcomers. The Chiss boy merely nodded as Instructor Akiva moved to stand in front of the students.

"Well this is pathetic." She spat as her eyes roamed along the students, mostly the new students but there were a few older students whom she looked at with disgust. For a moment Rathe was confused, then he felt an outside force not so gently press against him causing his injuries to flare up in pain. "You're supposed to be the future of the Sith, and yet you barely did anything. You!" The Twi'lek woman moved closer to a Zabrak girl who looked up her with wide eyes, utterly shocked at being called out by the instructor. "All you had to do was heal a sprained wrist, broken nose, and a few fractured ribs and you barely healed that nose at all." The girl looked a bit shaken at having her injuries revealed to the other students, students who would use the information in their fight against her. Though really, it wasn't much different than students taking note of who had broken noses and swelled shut eyes. "And you!" The purple Twi'lek moved towards one of the older students she'd been sneering at, a Sith boy with the same skin tone as Rathe but a few more facial tentacles than him. "How is it that you've been here a year and a half and you've yet to be able to repair a few bruises and a fractured wrist?" Though he couldn't see the bruises, Rathe filled away the information about the fractured wrist in case he was paired up against the other boy in a sparring match. "You!" Rathe suppressed a smirk as she turned and pointed at a human boy who'd been snickering as she tore into the other students. "What are you laughing about? You barely did anything to fix that strained shoulder or broken fingers of yours." The amused expression that had been on the human's face moments before was replaced with a look of reproach and discomfort as the instructor went through the list of injuries he had.

Dread filled Rathe as the Twi'lek's eyes landed upon him. "And finally you. You were tasked with healing a broken nose and bruised ribs as well as a number of bruises and other minor injuries, and you only managed to slightly heal your ribs and barely did anything with that nose of yours." She gave him a look filled with condescension and mock hurt. "And after I went through all that trouble of setting your nose for you too." Though Rathe's pride was once again injured as his physical injuries were pointed out for everyone to exploit, he couldn't help but feel slightly shocked. While he'd known his ribs were slightly better than before, he hadn't thought he'd done anything to his nose. Rathe waited until the woman was looking away from him, pointing out the injured of another student to gingerly touch his nose. It still hurt a good deal to touch, but felt less swollen than it had been.

"Akiva." Rathe looked curiously at Instructor Trevin who'd spoken the moment his fellow instructor had paused and started looking for another target. "I think that's enough, we still have training to do." The Twi'lek woman nodded faintly as she stepped away from the students. Annoyance flared within Rathe as he watched the instructors. Why go through all the trouble of pointing out _some_ of the injuries and not _all_ of them? Even as he asked himself the question, Rathe knew the answer, it was because they wanted him and the others who'd been called out to be at a disadvantage. "You older students are aware of what you're going to be doing next so you can go on ahead while I instruct the new students further." The redheaded man said, gesturing for the older students to move on. Rathe watched curiously as the students moved to an area that was partially walled off with half walls, making it so they could still see the students but they were still somewhat separated from everyone. Inside the area were a number of bags which the students hefted over their shoulders and began doing walking lunges around the area.

"Strength," Rathe's eyes snapped back to the redheaded instructor. "Strength is the single greatest attribute a Sith Warrior can possess. While many of you may have other attributes that can enhance your strength, like mastery of the force, cunning, high endurance or speed, **_at your core_**, your strength will be what serves you the best. Those of you who survive here will go on to be the fists and blades of the empire, enforcing our domination across the galaxy." The scarred man's eyes hardened as he looked at the children around him. "If the empire were to fall it would be because we warriors failed in our duty to the Emperor. For without us, the Inquisitors wouldn't have muscle to protect them from injury, the Imperial Agents wouldn't have any but bounty hunters and hired thugs to cause Republic eyes to shift so they can go about their duty unhindered, and Bounty Hunters would have no one to keep them in line or prevent them from switching sides. So it's imperative that each and every warrior who comes out of this facility has the strength to do their duty and uphold the responsibility entrusted upon them. It is thus our duty as instructors, to make sure you all acquire that strength." Trevin turned so he was half facing the area the older students were and extended a hand. From the other side of the wall, a number of short but somewhat thick pipes with handles rose and were pulled over to where the children were by the redheaded instructor. "Each of you needs to take two of these." The instructor said as he lowered the pipes to the ground. At once, all thirty children moved forward and took two of the pipes as instructed.

Rathe experimentally rotated his hands to the right and left as he peered curiously down at the metallic objects in his hands. While the handles made it easy for the pipes to be lifted, they weren't really all that necessary in his opinion as the pipes by themselves didn't seem all that heavy. In fact, they felt rather light. Much lighter than what he'd expected to feel after the Instructor had given them that speech about strength. A few faint murmurings around him let him know he wasn't the only one who was questioning the lack of weight. "Now that all of you have your individual pipes I want you all to line up in a single file line." With a few grumbles, the students lined up once more, with Rathe and Saril finding spots in the middle of the line. "You are all going to walk around the perimeter of this facility carrying these until I tell you to stop and if any of you stops for any reason, you must immediately walk to the back of the line and continue walking along the perimeter." Rathe's eyes followed Trevin's finger as he used it to point out the path they'd be walking, a path that not only was completely in the sun but also ran around the edge of where the older students were doing their own perimeter walking. "Now get to it." The students all began moving as Trevin and Akiva moved into the shade of a nearby building, one that was much better maintained and altogether more solid than the other buildings, positioning themselves so they could easily observe both sets of students.

Though the sun blazing above made him rather hot and sweaty, Rathe wasn't all that affected by the exercise. Briefly, he wondered if this simple exercise was given to them because much like his father hadn't had much hope in him succeeding, the instructors didn't think any of them had much hope of succeeding. The moment the students were out of the instructor's hearing range, Rathe could hear some students murmuring about how pointless what they were doing was and why were the instructors being so easy on them _now_ when they'd been so tough on them the past eighteen hours? Soon the murmurs turned from complaints to some of the male students bragging about how they would be able to do this while running the entire time. This in turn turned into the boys trying to verbally one up each other until finally one of the boys broke off from the rest of the group and began jogging around the perimeter. Wary glances made their way to the instructors, looking for any hint of disapproval. When there wasn't any berating of the boy, others began moving at a faster pace until half of the children were jogging around the perimeter. Rathe himself was half tempted to join them, but as his body was still aching from the previous night's sparring and a sleepless night, he was more than willing to take it easy.

As he lapped the courtyard for the second time, Rathe began to notice something: the students who had been jogging were slowing down. He himself was beginning to feel a bit of tension in his shoulders, but he wasn't tired by any means. As they carried on, the number of students jogging continued to decrease until they were all walking at the same pace as everyone else. Only, unlike everyone else their faces were tense as if they were in pain or a great deal of discomfort. Making a mental note to NOT jog while carrying the pipes, Rathe watched them as he tried to figure out why they looked like they were in pain. After a few more laps, the red skinned boy had his answer; the discomfort that had started in his shoulders had spread down along the length of his arms, as well as along his back, abdomen and legs. Only instead of being a feeling of general discomfort, it now felt rather painful. Said pain increased as he continued walking. Fighting back a grimace, Rathe continued on, doing his best to ignore the pain even as some of the children around him started slowing down.

"Ozaur get back to the end of the line!" Rathe looked over his shoulder at the sound of Instructor Trevin's command, raising his eyebrow slightly as he caught sight of a purple skinned Twi'lek boy bending over to pick up the pipes he'd apparently set down. "Remember, none of you are to stop moving until I or Instructor Akiva say so."

The group of children continued walking around the perimeter, gradually slowing down with each pass. Despite the burning in his upper body, Rathe stubbornly continued on even as his breathing began to come quicker. Normally, the sith boy would have felt embarrassed for panting for breath, but he wasn't the only student who was struggling to regain their breath. All of the children around him, including Saril, were breathing heavily and sweating profusely. As they continued on, some of the children began lagging far behind the group falling further and further behind with each lap of the courtyard. Rathe lost track of where they were as he turned his focus solely towards the back of the girl in front of him as he continued onwards. His focus was broken when the human child in front of him stumbled and fell to the ground. Rathe was just barely able to keep from walking over them as he and a number of children around him slowed down to a stop.

"Why have you all stopped? I don't recall telling you, you could stop." Trevin called out. The children briefly looked at each other in confusion. One of the students had fallen, wasn't that reason enough to stop? "All of you get to the back of the line!" Apparently not. With a bit of confusion and hesitance the children all moved to the back of the line, which happened to be behind one of the stragglers who'd been too far behind to be slowed up by the boy falling.

As they passed the boy, who'd yet to stand back up, Rathe noticed Instructor Akiva and Trevin discussing something for a moment before the Twi'lek woman began making her way over. He kept his eye trained on the purple-skinned woman as the she knelt down by the fallen child and checked his pulse. After a moment, Akiva drew her hand back and struck the child across the face. When that didn't rouse the boy, she struck him a second and third time until finally the boy awoke. "Get up and get to the back of the line!" Rathe heard the instructor say as he stood. The boy responded with something Rathe couldn't hear but when Instructor Akiva began laughing a laugh that made ice run down his spine, he knew it hadn't been anything good. "You can't because you're too thirsty and tired?" Akiva said amused when she stopped laughing. "A true Sith would never be defeated this easily." She gave a cold smile. "But then again you're not a true Sith are you?" She turned so she was looking at the students still moving about the courtyard. "None of you are true Sith! Not even those of you who have been here for years. You are not Sith until you leave this place and believe me, a good number of you won't be leaving this place alive. You new student take a look at him," Akiva pointed at the student. "This boy will be one of the first of your group to die." She continued on ignoring the fallen boy's look of horror. "This one who thought he could easily finish this exercise in the beginning but now says it's too hard for him to finish will die and no one will mourn him. Just like what will happen for the rest of you." She spat at the boy who was now struggling to get back onto his feet before moving back off to the side where Trevin still stood.

"Bitch." Rathe heard someone hiss from his right side. Raising an eyebrow, he turned to look at the Rattatakin girl who'd cursed. "How dare she act like we'll all die! We are Sith! We will not die so easily!"

"WE won't die so easily." Rathe corrected. "But HE might." The light skinned girl's eyes narrowed as she glanced at him. "Instructor Akiva might be a bitch but she does have a point, anyone who isn't able to keep going, especially if they've shown off only moments before, isn't a true Sith."

The Rattatakin girl eyed Rathe a moment before smirking faintly. "I suppose you have a point..."

"Rathe, Rathe Dresal." The boy offered as the girl's sentence trailed off expectantly.

"Seki Xyras." The pale skinned girl returned before both fell into silence as they steadfastly continued on.


	5. Rematch

EmeraldReporter: Thanks for the review! As I told Sasha Naruto there won't be a romance for a while as the characters are currently eight years old, and I don't even know if there will be a romance further down the line. While your idea about Rathe sleeping with a person of a higher rank to boost his prestige is interesting I will not be doing it as in my opinion every single Sith would look down upon a person who did that since it would be obvious that individual wasn't strong enough to gain that rank on their own.

Disclaimer: Star Wars the Old Republic doesn't belong to me if it did I wouldn't have to pay for a subscription.

Also, huge thanks to my betas :D

-x-

Hours dragged on in silence as Rathe determinedly continued on. By now, none of the children were making any noise aside from the heavy breathing coming from their mouths and their feet hitting the sand. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Instructor Trevin looked up at the sun and called out. "Okay, you all can stop moving." With a collective groan all of the students dropped the bars they'd been carrying as they came to a stop, some actually collapsing onto the ground. Though Rathe felt the urge to follow their lead, he kept himself from doing so as he noticed the older students pointing and laughing at the ones who'd fallen to the ground. Amongst them stood Kasal, who was giving the younger students a superior look, when the human's eyes locked with Rathe's the human's superior look transformed into a mocking smirk. Rathe's amber-gold eyes narrowed at the other boy as he curled his hands into fists, ignoring the twinges of pain the action caused.

"Don't get too comfortable." Instructor Akiva said, drawing Rathe's attention away from Kasal. A frown appeared on his face as he noted Instructor Uthyn exit one of the buildings and make his way over to his fellow instructors. Up until that moment, Rathe hadn't given much thought to where the fat bastard was, only vaguely noting that he had been nowhere in sight during the duration of the training exercises. Now though, the Sith boy was extremely curious as to exactly where the large human had been, and why he was only now appearing. "Form a single file line like you did earlier and wait to receive your water."

Wearily, the students moved into a single file line as instructed, though Rathe kept his eyes on Instructor Uthyn as the large human continued on his way, eventually coming to a stop next to the well Trevin had been standing by earlier. An uneasy feeling rose within the Sith boy as he realized the human who seemed to hate him would be in charge of handing cups of water out to the students. The uneasy feeling grew as the line began moving forward and the Instructor showed his sadistic side by making it difficult for the exhausted new students to get theirs by holding it out of their reach or "accidentally" spilling some of the water thus giving that particular child half or less of a cup of water. Though the other instructors did nothing to stop Uthyn, Rathe thought he saw Instructor Akiva's eyes narrow ever so faintly as the fat instructor took particular enjoyment out of harassing a young Twi'lek girl. Instructor Trevin on the other hand, showed nothing but cool disinterest as his larger human counterpart tormented the children.

Much faster than he'd thought possible, Rathe found himself standing in front of Instructor Uthyn. The uneasy feeling grew exponentially as he saw the fat man's lips twist into a cruel smirk. "Well, well. If it isn't sleeping beauty himself." The Sith boy's cheeks flushed in embarrassment as he, and all of the other students, was reminded of him passing out after his fight the previous day. "I do hope that you'll be less rude this evening and will be able to refrain from falling asleep during training. Or has living life as the son of the great captain Amevar Dresal rendered you incapable of being anything less than a spoiled, self-obsessed brat?" Quiet murmuring behind him let Rathe know the other students had heard Uthyn say his father's name, though the other two instructors didn't seem at all surprised about who his father was. Rathe's cheeks burned a darker shade of red in a combination of anger and humiliation as the instructor revealed his inability, so far, to live up to being Amevar Dresal's son. "Then again your brother didn't do much better." The Sith boy was half tempted to simply leave the line and join the students who had already received their water, but his parched throat prevented him from doing so.

"Enough Uthyn." Both Rathe and the large human looked at the redheaded instructor who'd spoken. "Get the line moving again so they don't get any time to rest." Trevin gestured towards the students who had already had their water.

"Yeah yeah." Instructor Uthyn grumbled, clearly unhappy to have his fun cut short, holding out a cup for Rathe. Predictably, as Rathe moved to take it, the fat instructor moved the cup out of his reach. Unpredictably, when the Sith boy made a second attempt, Uthyn let go of the cup right as Rathe's fingers brushed against it. The Sith boy fumbled with the cup, doing his best to get a firm hold on it, and with the greatest of luck managed to do just that, after spilling half or more of the contents. Quickly swallowing the remaining water, Rathe didn't trust the instructor to not attempt to flat out knock it out of his hands, the Sith boy gave the cup back and moved over to where the other children who'd already received water stood.

"What was all that about?" Seki asked as Rathe came to a stop where she and Saril were standing.

"I have no idea." Rathe admitted honestly, with a faint shrug. "I really don't!" He continued when Saril gave him a disbelieving look. Before either the Chiss or Rattataki could express further disbelief, their attention was drawn back to the instructors.

"Now that everyone has had their second and final cup of water for the day, we will now move onto the final exercise of the day: your sparring matches." Instructor Trevin said, gesturing towards the building they'd sparred in the previous day. A few of the children made noises of surprise and displeasure at the thought of sparring with someone yet again, Rathe himself felt some disbelief at the idea as the muscles in his arms and legs, as well as the rest of his body, were still strained and taut from the day's exercise. Yet, at the same time he wasn't all that surprised they were being made to fight again since the entire day they'd been forced to do one physically exhausting or daunting task one right after the other. Judging by the grim faces of some of the newer students around him, he wasn't the only one to come to that conclusion. "Come, let us see who will win their rations _this_ evening." At the reminder that winning their match was the only way to receive their rations, the children became slightly more enthusiastic as they began quickly walking towards the building. Much like the previous day, the room was stifling hot and the air humid, making it slightly harder to breathe.

"Once again," Instructor Akiva began as she and the other two instructors made their way to the center of the room while the students formed a ring around the outside of the sparring area. "We will call two of your names and whoever is called must fight no matter what and if any of you attempt to get out of it or refuse to fight both of you will go without rations for the night." Rathe's lower lip was caught between his teeth as he worried for a moment about possibly going up against Saril or Seki, he would do his best to fight them but he'd worry about losing his newly formed ties if he beat them. _If!?_ Rathe shook his head at the slight doubt in his mind. Normally, he was much more confident in his abilities, but as he'd missed out on Saril and Seki's matches the day before, he had no clue how well either of them had fought or how their skills matched up to his.

"The first opponents of the day will be," Instructor Uthyn began, pulling Rathe out of his thoughts. "Kasal Traael." Rathe's eyes narrowed faintly as the fat instructor's eyes landed upon him. He wasn't going to pull the same thing twice was he? "And our resident sleeping beauty." The Sith boy clenched his jaw at the mocking name the instructor had given him, but dutifully made his way out into the middle of the ring.

"This will be over quick." Kasal said cockily as they picked up their practice blades and turned to face each other.

"Don't count on it." Rathe hissed back as he glared at the older human.

"FIGHT!" Uthyn bellowed, cutting through their conversation.

Unlike the previous day, Rathe didn't charge forward immediately, instead he fell into a guarded stance and watched the other boy. Kasal paced back and forth a few times, feigning a few attacks to draw Rathe out of his stance. "You want to be that way? Fine." The dark-skinned human said as he went on the attack with a fast lunge the Sith boy easily blocked but was forced to take a step back from. Rathe was further pushed back as the older boy continued to press his attack. Gritting his teeth, he blocked and did his best to parry the flurry of lunges and feints coming at him. The attack came to an end when Kasal pulled back after an attempted swipe at the Sith boy's legs was blocked. Breathing slightly heavily, the two boys circle each other as they wait for the other to attack, the lull is broken when Rathe lunges forward with a swipe at Kasal's left shoulder. An attack that is easily parried by the older, more experienced fighter and the Sith boy finds himself once again on the receiving end of an attack. Hoping to get a hit in, Rathe side steps a lunge and attempts to get around behind the other boy only to experience a sharp pain in his side when Kasal recovers much quicker than expected and takes advantage of Rathe's close proximity and lowered guard.

Hissing in pain, the Sith boy pressed his hand against his ribs, hoping the strong blow that'd just been delivered to them hadn't caused any fractures he'd received the day before to break further. The two boys circled each other once more, looking for any opening in the other's defense. This time, the lull was broken when Kasal took two quick steps to the side and once again lunged at Rathe, in an attempt to get the Sith boy to drop his defense. When the attack was blocked, the human boy began zigzagging in his attacks, forcing Rathe to defend against an attack from the left right after having to defend against an attack from the right all the while being forced to back up. The moment he realized just how far he'd backed up, was the moment his back crashed into someone and he found himself being shoved forward. Instead of fighting to regain his balance or remain on his feet, Rathe used the momentum from the shove to tuck himself into a roll and roll around Kasal, dodging the attack that'd been aimed at his face. Quickly springing up, Rathe turned back towards his opponent, who'd spun around, and attempted to use his opponents strategy against him, first by lunging at him from the right with an attack aimed at his feet and when it was blocked, aimed another attack at him from the left side. While the attacks did put Kasal on the defense, it didn't force him to move back like Rathe had been forced to do. Frustrated that the attack wasn't working like he'd thought it would, the Sith boy attempted a downward strike that would have struck Kasal's arm if he hadn't dodged out of the way. But the human _did_ move out of the way, and repaid Rathe for his carelessness with a blow to his shoulder that caused the entire length of his arm to tingle.

Rathe let out another hiss, shaking his arm for a moment to try to make the tingling stop. He glared at the other boy who was pacing back and forth with a sadistic smile as the tingling lessened, feeling very much like he was a mouse being toyed with by a cat. As Kasal charged forward to press the attack once more, Rathe charged forward as well, their blades crashing together as they met halfway. The two boys' blades clashed together time after time as they attacked and defended themselves against attack, the clash coming to an end when instead of blocking an attack Kasal simply moved back a step causing Rathe to stumble forward. Using the Sith boy's stumble to his advantage, Kasal brought his knee up and slammed it into the red skinned boy's injured ribs forcing all the air in Rathe's lungs to come rushing out. Rathe gasped for breath as he attempted to get back onto his feet only to be knocked to the ground when the pommel of Kasal's practice sword slammed into the back of the red skinned boy's head. Still gasping for air, and flushed from embarrassment and anger, Rathe attempted to get up once more, only to stop when the tip of the other boy's practice sword pressed against the side of his neck.

"Like I said, this will be over quick." Rathe didn't even have to look at the other boy to know his cocky smirk was back on his face, wider than ever.

"It looks like Kasal will be receiving rations this evening as well." The practice blade was removed from Rathe's neck as Instructor Uthyn spoke, and the red skinned boy finally made his way back onto his feet. He gritted his teeth as pain shot out from his ribs as he made his way over to where Instructor Trevin stood to return his practice blade. Once the blade left his hand, the red skinned boy limped over to where Saril and Seki stood. The next few fights passed in a frenzied blur of blades flashing and students crying out when blows connected as Rathe worked to get his breathing under control and then did his best to ignore the exhaustion and pain he felt. He focused his eyes upon the fighting once more when Saril was called to fight against a Twi'lek girl. From the beginning of the fight Saril dominated the fight by first successfully using feints to confuse his opponent and then using his superior strength to knock aside her attempts to block his attacks. The Sith boy's eyes widened faintly as the fight was quickly brought to an end when after knocking her blade aside, Saril pressed the flat of his practice blade against her throat and was declared the winner in nearly half the time of his own fight. Either his new ally was much stronger and was a much better fighter than he'd previously thought, or the Twi'lek girl was just that much weaker than the Chiss boy. Glancing at the bruises covering the blue skinned boy's face, Rathe came to the conclusion that it was more the latter as Saril had had problems when fighting against a more experienced student. Of course, he could be completely wrong, so the Sith boy decided to wait for a few more fights before coming to a conclusion about his ally.

"Sorry." Saril said apologetically, as he rejoined Rathe and Seki.

"Don't be, you earned yours just like Kasal earned his. I'll just work twice as hard to win tomorrow's bout." Though Rathe had a feeling he'd be going up against Kasal so it was possible he'd go for a third night without rations. His determination to beat the dark-skinned human grew as his eyes wandered over to where the other boy was standing, he _had_ to win the next fight no matter what. Otherwise, he'd wind up starving like Uthyn was no doubt hoping for. His hands curled into fists as he glared at the human who was currently chatting with his three lackeys.

His amber-yellow eyes were torn away from the human as he heard Seki's name being called to fight against a taller human. Since they'd spoken out in the yard, Rathe had been discretely examining Seki and had noticed the number of bruises she had were much lower than the number he and Saril were currently sporting which he'd interpreted to mean she'd won her first bout. So he was very curious to see how she performed during this bout. The fight immediately started with her opponent charging her with his blade raised above him, a tactic that almost had Rathe gaping in shock to see. Very few Sith would ever simply rush forward with their blade raised above them, exposing the majority of their body to attack. Seki, in fact, made him pay for the gap in defense by striking his knee. Unfortunately, though the attack hit, and had enough force behind it to cause her opponent to walk with a slight limp afterwards, it was one of the few blows she was able to land as the human's greater strength and size proved to be too much for her to overcome. All too soon, she was in a similar position to what he'd been in, gasping for breath on the ground with her opponent's blade pressed against her throat. Visibly frustrated, the pale-skinned girl made her way over to them with clenched fists and jaw.

"You did well out there considering." Saril said as Rathe gave her a sympathetic look.

"Not well enough." She ground out before falling silent, maintaining her silence throughout the remaining fights. Rathe himself did his best to try to pay attention to them, but eventually became distracted by his exhaustion and pain once more.

"All right, that's the last fight of the night." Instructor Uthyn announced as the final two fighters made their way out of the ring. "I want you all to line up like you did last night: winners with Instructor Akiva and losers with Instructor Trevin." Silently, Rathe and Seki moved to Trevin's line while Saril moved to Akiva's line. Once all of the losers of the day had lined up the red headed instructor began leading them outside while his fellow instructor began handing out rations to the winners.


	6. Crime and Punishment

AN: This is probably a good time to remind everyone that I am basing a lot of the training in this story off of historically, what the Spartans put their young men through. This includes harsh punishments that a lot of people might find utterly brutal because they involve children.

As always, huge thanks to my betas :D

-x-

Rathe wearily trudged back to the building that housed the student rooms, even in his tired state he hesitated to call the rooms' dorms as they'd obviously not been built with sleeping arrangements in mind, doing his best to not stumble over his own two feet. Adding onto the physical training combined with his thrashing at the hands of Kasal once more-being forced to stand around and watch the other matches and not getting hardly any sleep the night before had left him utterly exhausted. Normally, the Sith would have felt ashamed of having to place so much effort into placing one foot in front of the other, but seeing as how there were other children who were tripping and visibly stumbling, any sting of pride he might have felt was absent. His cheeks darkened faintly when, upon arriving at the building, Rathe's foot caught on a slightly raised stone at the entrance, causing him to stumble slightly. His hand bracing against the wall was the only reason he was able to recover from his stumble so quickly and continue his way down the hall to his room.

As tired as Rathe was, and as good as the tiny mat that served as his bed looked, he refused to allow himself to fall asleep just yet. He want to use some of the night in a somewhat useful way by further figuring out how to heal himself, right now in his room and the bit of time dedicated towards training the ability would be the only times he'd be able to practice and he wanted to get the hand of the technique as soon as possible. So, when the Instructors moved onto the next room for the nightly roll call/room check, Rathe sat down in the middle of his room with his legs crossed and began to mentally search for the energy he'd discovered earlier in the day.

His eyes shot open as a shrill noise pierced through the air. Pushing himself up out of the position he'd been lying in, Rathe became aware of three things, one: he'd fallen asleep while trying to meditate, two: it was currently morning, three: he hadn't accomplished anything he'd meant to do the night before. Cursing himself for his inability to fight his exhaustion, the Sith boy quickly rose to his feet, or rather he attempted to quickly rise to his feet but was unable to as a blinding pain emanating from his ribs hit him. Sucking in a shaky breath, the Rathe made a second attempt at standing, this time much slower, and made his way out of his room.

"How'd you sleep last night?" The Chiss boy asked as Rathe looked around for Seki.

"Better." He said as he spotted the Rattataki girl further down the hallway from them, near two of Kasal's lackeys; the orange skinned Sith boy Mathieu and the human girl Talia. His lips thinned at the thought of one of his own allies being so far away from himself and his other ally and so close to two of Kasal's. Hopefully, they wouldn't pull anything but he didn't completely dismiss the possibility.

"How're the ribs? Broken?"

Rathe shook his head in response to the other boy's question. "Not broken, but they hurt like hell." Along with practically every muscle in his body and his hands, which sported small but painful blisters on the palms of his hands.

"Not surprising." In all actuality, Rathe was somewhat surprised none of them were broken considering the beating he'd taken the day prior. Once again, he cursed himself for allowing himself to fall asleep when he should have used the time to start healing himself. Much like the prior day, the students followed Trevin outside where they then lined up and received their first drink of water of the day. Once the liquid hit Rathe's empty stomach, he became very aware of how he hadn't eaten for two days now as his stomach rumbled, demanding it be filled. He did his best to ignore the rumbling as he stepped away from the instructor.

As he waited for the other students to get their water, Rathe began to truly examine the older students. Though there wasn't anything that marked what year they were, there were slight differences that allowed him to figure out which ones had been there for a while and which ones had only arrived the year prior. The most obvious difference was that the boys and girls who were in their fifth and last year were about a foot taller than the students who'd just arrived. Granted, Saril was about the same height as them so height wasn't exactly the best indicator to go by. After the obvious height differences, there were other more subtle differences that separated the different age groups. As the age progressed, there was an increased look of desperation that only started to decrease and become replaced by a hardness in the eyes of the fourth and fifth year students. Another thing Rathe noted, was that as the age of the group rose the amount of students within that group decreased, based off of the number of students he'd arrived with, Rathe estimated that the oldest age group contained a little less than half as many students as his own age group.

As the last student received and drank their water and the instructors began removing the cups from the area, a majority of the students began moving towards the training area in which they'd had their healing session the morning before. Only a handful of new students, of which Rathe, Saril, and Seki were not among, remained looking uncertain of what they should do.

"Don't tell me you all have forgotten what you're supposed to do next." Instructor Akiva said mockingly, as she noticed the student's hesitation. The students who were being addressed flushed in embarrassment and began shuffling their feet. "You poor pampered children, so used to being told what to do and how to do it, you now have no idea how to follow a routine unless its spelled out for you." The mocking tone was infused with an undercurrent of disgust and hate as the Twi'lek woman sneered at them. "Well I guarantee you, that we'll _break_ you of that habit before you leave here."

As he lowered himself into a seated position, Rathe watched the humiliated children quickly find places around the training area to sit or kneel down. He felt a slight pang of sympathy for them, which he quickly smothered because, why should he feel sympathetic towards those whom deserved criticism? He was in the process of beginning to turn his attention inward, when something out in the distance of the desert caught his attention. At first he thought it was simply an odd shadow, because it simply couldn't be a person coming towards them through the desert. After all, where would someone come from in the desert? So it must have simply been the early morning light playing tricks on him. But as the object came closer, Rathe realized that he _wasn't_ seeing things, there actually was a person moving through the desert towards them. He continued watching the figure, until his attention was drawn away by a pair of fingers snapping in front of his face. Blinking, Rathe looked up at the figure looming over him.

"Is there a reason why you're stalling?" Instructor Trevin asked with a faintly raised eyebrow. "I would think that someone who'd taken a beating two days in a row would want to focus all of his attention towards healing himself."

Despite his face flushing at the faintly mocking tone, Rathe was able to ignore the embarrassment he felt as he nodded an affirmative which caused Trevin's eyebrow to rise higher. "There's someone out there." He said, pointing towards the figure.

"So I see." The redheaded man murmured as he followed the line of Rathe's finger. "Akiva," he turned away from Rathe as he began addressing his fellow instructor. "It appears that Mannis has decided to rejoin us." Akiva pushed off from where she stood in the shade, leaning against the side of the Arena, turning her attention towards the entrance to the expansive space that was the desert wasteland. A cruelly delighted smile alighted her face the moment she spotted the aforenamed Mannis and began moving towards a building diagonal from the student dormitory. "Good eye." The comment was spoken so idly and quietly, that the Sith boy was half sure he'd imagined it, becoming even more convinced he'd imagined it when Trevin made no acknowledgement of his comment as he moved to the center of the area and clapped his hands loudly.

"I apologize for interrupting your morning meditations so soon after you began them." He began once he had the attention of all the present students. "But it appears that we have a rare opportunity for driving home a point that all of you," he cast his eyes over the older students. "Should keep in mind during your duration here." Beyond him, Rathe could see Instructor Akiva emerging from the building she'd entered moments ago, carrying something in her hands.

The figure that'd grown steadily larger, seemed to pause for a moment. It was almost as though this Mannis was wavering in his decision to come back to the facility. Akiva, whose purple skin easily stood out against the white sand and bleached white walls of buildings, moved to the center of the training area and unfurled the bundle she'd been holding. Rathe felt his breath catch as he realized the bundle in her arms was a neuronic whip. He knew of households that prized that brand of whip when punishing their slaves; it could fracture bones but was very unlikely to incur death. His father had instead preferred using an electro whip as it could adequately punish a slave but would prevent that slave from being unable to work while it recovered from its injuries. That Akiva, a former slave, was now wielding one made Rathe want to put as much distance between the two of them as possible.

As the figure drew closer, Rathe was able to make out more and more of his features. Mannis turned out to be a very lean human boy with hair dirtied from the sand blowing about. His clothes were dirty and ratty and full of so many tears and holes the only thing they really did was preserve his dignity in front of everyone. In fact, Rathe found himself wondering why Mannis didn't simply discard of the torn fabric that remained of his shirt as, judging by the angry pink skin showing beneath the large gaps in the fabric, it barely did what it was originally intended for. Drawing ever closer, Rathe was able to make out the approaching human's eyes that were so bloodshot they looked to be an almost solid pink.

As Mannis finally crossed over the threshold separating the facility from the desert, Rathe was able to examine him better. What he'd initially mistaken for as a lean form, was actually a severely malnourished one that made him wonder exactly how long the human boy had been out in the desert. His face was very gaunt causing his cheek bones to be extremely pronounced and his eyes to be sunken into his head, making Rathe almost uncomfortably aware of the shape of Mannis's skull. His eyes possessed a desperation that was similar and yet utterly different from the desperation he'd seen in the eyes of the second and third year students. His was much more manic, and twitchy. Almost like a rodent or cockroach that'd been caught but didn't have any where to escape to.

"Instructors." The word was spoken in a raspy voice that either hinted at disuse or how dry the other boy's throat was or perhaps a combination of the two, Rathe wasn't entirely sure.

"Well isn't this a pleasant surprise." Akiva purred menacingly as she moved towards the student. "Trevin and I had thought for certain you'd be dead by now."

"Mannis decided nearly a week ago, that he would rather take his chances out there in the desert than remain at this facility" Instructor Trevin said, the corner of his mouth curving upwards ever so faintly in a coldly amused smirk as he looked around at the children sitting or kneeling in the courtyard rather than at the boy he spoke of. "However, as you all can plainly see, Mannis has since reconsidered his decision and had come back to us. For that he will now be punished," there was a faint gasp of shock, though from whom Rathe didn't know. "This is because no Sith should allow themselves to show as big of a weakness as either not being able to tell when a decision will most likely result in their death, or being unable to see their decisions through to the end no matter how difficult the path it might be." Rathe found himself blinking and narrowing his eyes slightly as Trevin turned to look at his fellow instructor, he _thought_ he had seen the faint smile on the instructor's face soften for a moment. "Akiva here will demonstrate the sort of punishment you will expect to receive should you come up with the foolish notion of following Mannis's example."

The Twi'lek woman in question, who up until this point had been silently staring at Mannis with a sadistic grin, let out a bark of laughter as the boy flinched at Trevin's words. "Don't worry boy." She drawled. "I'm not going to kill you. Rather when I'm through with you you'll be begging for death."

Suddenly, the redheaded man held his hand out towards Mannis, who let out a strangled noise of surprise as he suddenly spun around at a speed that should have made him fall over and stretched his arms out to either side. For a moment, there was a faint push on the edge of Rathe's consciousness, similar to a the feel of a faint breeze against his skin. He tilted his head slightly, watching the other boy, as the dots connected within his head and he realized the sensation was likely what it felt like when someone else used the force. The Sith boy frowned faintly as the realization led to a number of questions, such as why hadn't he felt the same sensation the day prior when all of the students had been healing themselves? It was possible that the other newly arrived students might have been having difficulty healing themselves, as they'd been given very little instruction on how to do so, but surely the older students would know how to do that, wouldn't they? He couldn't imagine a student being there for a year or more and not being able to know how to do that. So if that were true, and one who was force sensitive could sense when the force was being used, then why hadn't he been able to feel the other students healing?

Rathe was torn from his thoughts as a loud crack sounded throughout the courtyard. Blinking, the Sith boy was greeted to the sight of Akiva drawing the whip back after having struck Mannis with the first blow, and an angry dark red welt on the other boy's back. Before, the courtyard had been almost completely silent, aside from the Instructors talking and the faint whispering between some of the students. Now, the courtyard was completely silent aside from the wind blowing and the sound the tip of Akiva's whip coming in contact with the sand as she pulled her arm fully back. Rathe flinched as the whip came in contact with Mannis's back a second time, this time leaving an angry red line crisscrossing the previously left welt. A third blow landed, leaving its mark from the back of his right shoulder down along his ribs. In spite of himself, Rathe found himself feeling a bit of respect for the other boy, as, despite Mannis's obviously weakened state, he gamely refused to make a sound as the strikes kept coming. A feat made even more impressive by the fact that Akiva was sending stunning jolt after stunning jolt at him with every hit. Mannis finally lost the battle when the whip struck the back of his neck though by that point half of his back was covered in welts or bloodied lines.

The sun had risen far beyond the horizon, and sweat was forming on Rathe's brow when Akiva's blows came to a sudden halt. The courtyard filled with silence as Mannis sagged against his invisible restraints, letting out gasping, ragged breaths as she stepped away from him. By now, a good portion of the boy's skin had been torn off, leaving a majority of his back raw and seeping blood. Though number of Akiva's blows had caused rather deep cuts that had left thick trails of blood running down his back, staining the remnants of his clothing. The most morbidly fascinating thing to Rathe throughout the whole thing, aside from watching how long it took Mannis to make a noise, had been watching the sand beneath and behind the other boy grow darker and darker from the blood splattering off his back.

As Akiva began going through the motions of putting the whip away, Rathe's eyes remained focused upon Mannis. Had he been anyone else, Rathe might have felt more than a sliver of pity for the other boy. As, despite kind of deserving his punishment, the boy now had to worry about a somewhat serious wound in addition to obviously suffering from malnutrition and as far as Rathe could tell there wasn't any medical facility to help speed up the healing process. Rathe blinked as the meaning of his thoughts hit him, and looked around the compound. There were a number of buildings scattered about, but aside from the mini space port/landing pad, the arena, the student's rooms and where he assumed the Instructor's slept, he assumed because that building was the one that appeared to be constantly maintained while the others fell into disrepair, he didn't know what any of them contained. So, he was unsure if there even was a medical facility on the premise.

_But if there was one, surely we would have been shown it._ Amber-gold eyes widened slightly as Rathe suddenly realized what it meant if there were no medical facility on the premises. The students themselves would have to heal _every_ wound on their own, he turned back towards Mannis and his bloodied back, each and every single one of them.


	7. Healing

As always, huge thanks to my betas :D

-x-

"Well, that was a fascinating demonstration." Trevin said, speaking for the first time since the punishment had begun. He halfheartedly waved his hand towards Mannis, causing the boy to fall forward onto the sand beneath him. "I hope you've learned your lesson Mannis." He continued `watching the boy with pitiless eyes as Mannis began struggling to his feet. "And won't think of doing something so foolish next time. And as for the rest of you," the Instructor turned to look at the students watching him attentively. "I believe you still have some healing to do, hmm?"

Rathe glanced at the sun for a brief moment, before looking back at the instructor with a scowl. Judging by the position of the sun, they had maybe three hours to heal themselves. Considering how long it had taken him to heal himself the tiniest bit, Rathe doubted he would be able to do anything in that short time period. Cursing himself for not using some of the time during Mannis's punishment to heal himself, Rathe closed his eyes and began searching for the force with his mind. Now that he knew what to search for with his mind, he was able to find it much faster than he had been able to the day before. He exhaled heavily as he connected once more with the force, the sensation of being connected to the universe was less shocking and much headier than it had been when he had first made the connection. Not wanting to waste anymore time, Rathe directed the force towards his ribs, using a cursory probe of them to reveal how badly damaged they were. A good number of his ribs were merely bruised, though that did not really fill him with any sense of relief as eight of his remaining ribs had fractures in them and two were in fact broken, with the two edges of bone completely separated from one another. Hurriedly, he directed the force at his broken ribs, his breath hitched faintly at the pain shooting through him as the broken pieces were moved back into place and he turned his focus solely on the broken ends. Through the force he could feel the jagged edges of the bones, could feel how they fit together when the bones were whole. He sat there for a moment as he tried to figure out what to do next. From what he remembered from the previous day, he had been able to heal himself some by putting pressure against his ribs and broken nose. He was sure he could do the same thing with his ribs, but he was not sure exactly how to go about doing it. If he used too much pressure, he was afraid he would either break his ribs worse by sending the broken ribs into his lung or causing them to poke through his skin.

_But maybe if I put pressure on both sides I'll be able to heal them without worrying about the bones stabbing some part of me._ A small part of Rathe was worried that by doing that, all he would wind up doing was breaking the jagged edges, but he was less worried about that than he was about puncturing a lung. Concentrating, Rathe carefully began using the force to apply pressure to either side of his bones. At first, the Sith boy could not feel or sense anything happening. Then, white hot pain began shooting through him. The pain was so intense, Rathe's eyes shot open, and he could barely hold back the gasp that tried to claw its way out of his mouth. For a moment, Rathe was terrified he had broken the bones further, and quickly used the force to gently probe the broken bones. What he discovered utterly shocked him. Instead of the jagged edges being broken, they were actually somewhat healed! That was not to say that his ribs were completely solid, no. Instead, the small gap between the jagged edges was even smaller, it was a minuscule difference, but it was a difference none the less. Glancing up at the sun, Rathe determined he had maybe two hours left to fully heal his broken ribs and repair his fractured ribs a bit.

Steeling himself, Rathe began putting pressure on his ribs once more. Blinding white hot pain shot through him once more and he began feeling the sensation of his broken bones rubbing against one another, an almost unbearable kind of feeling that almost made him stop. Almost, except for the fact that he could also feel the bones slowly mending through the force. He added more pressure to his ribs in an attempt to make the process go faster, and almost passed out from the sharp increase in pain. Had he not been already seated, he was sure he would have fallen onto the ground. As it was, his eyes shot open and his hands shook as he fought to keep his gasps of pain from sounding anywhere aside from the inside of his own mind. Glancing around, he found that none of the other students had noticed anything. In fact, it seemed like the Instructors had not sensed or seen anything either judging by how they appeared to be engrossed in a quiet conversation in the shade of a building off to the side. His heart rate and his breathing slowly leveled out as he continued looking around the courtyard. All around him, the other students appeared to be consumed by their own healing. Even Mannis, whom Rathe was surprised to see kneeling not too far away from where he had been punished earlier seemed to be in the process of healing his wounds, though Rathe could not see how well he was doing as the other boy was seated facing towards him. Rathe's eyes were once more drawn towards the darkened patches of sand, stained with Mannis's blood. Already, the wind was starting to move and spread the darkened granules around. He would imagine that by this time the next day the darkened patch would be almost entirely gone, either blown away by the wind, or covered up by other untouched granules of sand.

Taking a deep breath, Rathe slowly closed his eyes once more and continued the healing process where he left off. The entire ordeal was incredibly painful, with Rathe only being able to keep himself from crying out by gritting his teeth, and though the process took less than an hour in total, it felt like an eternity. Earlier, he had wondered how Mannis had been able to keep from crying out for so long, now he knew. It was because he had taught himself how to keep from making a noise whilst healing his wounds. Rathe half wondered and half hoped that he would be able to either get used to the pain or figure out a way to lessen it when healing himself in the future. He used his shirt to wipe the sweat off of his face, some of which had been caused not by the heat, but by the pain he had experienced only moments before, grimacing at the thin layer of sand that was left in place of the sweat.

Rathe knew he should start the healing process for the rest of his ribs, but instead, he simply sat there for a few minutes. Logically, he knew that repairing the fractures and bruising on the rest of his ribs would be less painful, as he would not have to realign the bones, and yet he still hesitated. Did it make him less of a Sith that he needed to take a moment or two to gather himself? His eyes narrowed and hardened as his own mind provided the answer; yes. Yes, it did mean he was less of a Sith, but as the Instructors had frequently reminded them since their arrival, they were not considered to be [i]_real_[/i] Sith yet. Shaking his head, Rathe began gathering himself in order to finish healing himself as much as he was able to. As predicted, there was some pain as he began healing his fractured ribs, but the pain he experienced was practically muted in comparison to the jarring pain he had felt earlier. It still felt like someone was grinding the bits of broken bone together though.

Despite the pain, Rathe found himself rather interested in the different kinds of fractures he could feel through the force. The worst of his fractures, the ones he knew had been caused from direct impact by Kasal's boots, knees, or practice blade were long fractures that kind of reminded him of spider webs in that they splintered off in numerous lines away from the 'original' fracture. He shuddered to think how difficult it would be to try to heal the bone if the various fractures had gone all the way through the bone causing a separation of the various bits. Not quite as interesting, were the fractures that were incredibly shallow and small and tended to appear further away from the points of impact at the spots where his ribs had reached their flexibility limit. Right in the middle, in terms of interest, were the ones that ran either completely vertical along the bone or ran in a fairly straight but diagonal line across the bone.

The small, shallow fractures, were the easiest ones to heal, as unlike the more complex ones the bone was still in one piece. All those required was him simply putting a little bit of pressure on the bone to straighten it out and the two bits knit back together fairly easily. The multi pieced fractures were less easy as they required him using the force to hold the pieces in place and putting pressure on all of them at the same time. The pain he experienced from healing multiple bits was only slightly less intense than the pain he had experienced when he had attempted to speed up the healing process earlier but, unlike then, he was able to push on despite the growing light headed sensation he felt, as he healed himself.

"Alright, that's enough." Rathe's eyes opened as Instructor Akiva suddenly spoke. He felt a deep sense of satisfaction as he rose from his seated positions. For though he had not been able to heal his bruised ribs, he had been successful in healing all of the remaining fractures. It still hurt some to take deep breaths due to the remaining bruising, but he was breathing a bit easier than he had been, and it did not hurt as much to move his arms about.

Not wanting to give Akiva any more reason to insult them, the students quickly moved onto the physical training, though there were grimaces on the faces of the new students. Not that Rathe could blame them, after all his muscles were aching and he had painful blister on his hands so he was not looking forward to picking up the metal bars. As he picked the bars up, Rathe could not help but wish that they had been given gloves upon arriving. At least then they would not have to worry about blisters forming. Unlike the previous day, none of the new students attempted to run. Instead, they all remained in a large group as they walked around the perimeter. His already aching muscles wasted no time in protesting the exercise. Causing his entire body to feel like someone was either stabbing him or had lit him on fire.

As he rounded a corner, Rathe found his gaze drawn towards the older students in the center of the training area whom were carrying large bags over their shoulders whilst doing lunges. He could not help but wonder how they could withstand doing that day after day when most of the new students had looked to be on the verge of giving up yesterday. Granted, they were probably used to the physical training due to them being at the training facility longer. But, they had huge bags thrown over their shoulders, which Rathe was fairly certain were filled with sand because of the abundance found around them, while he and the new students only had metal bars that barely weighed anything. He supposed that the Instructors probably moved them onto the bags after a year with the bars because the students eventually grew used to the exercise. In all honesty, a part of him was honestly shocked that the they even started them off on an 'easier' exercise in the first place. Though if Rathe were honest with himself, he doubted he could lift a bag that large onto his shoulder. So, maybe giving the new students a less difficult exercise was less about going easy on them, and more about making sure there was not any time wasted when it came to making the students stronger.

Still, that did not explain how they could stand to carry the bags over their shoulders without hesitation. From what he had been told before he had arrived, the new training year started on the day Rathe had arrived. This meant that the day before had been the first day the now second year students had used the bags, and yet, Rathe had not seen any of the older students struggle with their task like the students in his year had. It was possible, given what he had witnessed earlier with Mannis, that they were just better at hiding their discomfort, but Rathe did not think that was the case. After all, even the best bluffer would not have been able to hide their discomfort this morning when the lingering exhaustion from sleep should have caused them to lower their guard. But, from what he could remember, only the students in his year had shown any indication they were suffering from the training in addition to their injuries.

Wait! That was it! Rathe nearly came to a stop as a light bulb went off in his head. He knew, that when a person trained their muscles actually tore and got stronger by healing. This meant that they probably healed themselves, either at night, like Rathe had meant to do the night before, or during their normal morning meditations, speeding up the healing process. That was why they were not acting like they were in pain! It was because they _weren't_ in pain due to their muscles having already healed from the abuse they had put them through the prior day. Suddenly, Rathe had another reason to heal himself at night. He wondered if he could speed up the process even more by healing himself while going through the physical training, before quickly dismissing the idea. He had only just figured out how to heal himself, and currently it took a lot of concentration in order for him to heal his ribs. Concentration that he would not be able to manage while he was moving. But perhaps he could figure out how to heal while in motion later on down the road? It was a bit foolish to count on figuring out something that might possibly take years when Rathe did not know if he would survive his first year training. But, the act of planning to do something in the future made some of the weight on his shoulder lessen and gave him a solid goal to look forward to accomplishing, other than the goal of simply surviving another day.

As he moved around the courtyard Rathe's mind began to wander, in part due to the monotonous nature of the walking but mainly in an attempt to ignore the pain starting to radiate through his muscles. With a single goal in mind, a list began to form filled with other goals he wanted to accomplish while at the training facility on Dromund Fels, and at the very top of the list, was beating Kasal. Immediately, amber-gold eyes sought out and found the dark-skinned human who was studiously doing lunges along the inner portion of the training yard. He would beat the human, he _had_ to beat the human. At this point there was a great deal of pride on the line and every time the human beat him his pride took more and more of a blow. But there was also another reason he wanted to beat Kasal, other than pride, it was because, from what he had seen of the students the other day, the human was the best student here. And if he beat Kasal that would then mean that _he_ was the best.

Directly underneath the goal of beating Kasal came the goal of getting back at Uthyn. He did not know what precisely had happened to cause the Instructor to despise him so, but whatever the reason was the instructor took great delight in seeing him suffer. He also was unsure about how exactly he could get back at Uthyn, but Rathe was confident that he would figure it out. As he lapped the training yard for the tenth time, Rathe's stomach decided to remind him of the lack of food inside it. As he did his best to ignore his stomach Rathe could not help but wonder if this was the exact same situation his brother had been in before he had died. For the first time since hearing that his brother had perished, Rathe felt a thread of understanding grow amongst the shame and anger he felt towards his brother for dying.

With the thought of food, and what the lack of food could cause, now racing through his mind, Rathe's second goal of getting back at Uthyn was bumped down to the third goal on his list, replaced with the goal of figuring out someway of getting some rations for himself regardless if he won them in a fight. The Instructors had to keep the rations stored somewhere in the facility, only he did not know where. Of the sunbaked structures only four of them he could identify; the small space port they had arrived on, the arena, the student dormitories, and the Instructor's dormitories. This meant that there were thirteen buildings whose purpose he didn't know. He was half tempted to eliminate all of the buildings that were either the same size or larger than the dormitories or arena were, after all who needed a storage area that big? But dismissed the thought as that would make it almost too easy for any student to figure out which building contained the rations.

At the bottom of his list of goals, Rathe placed the goal of learning how to heal himself whilst moving. Even without knowing how to heal himself while he was training, Rathe would still be able to heal himself in his rooms or after his daily sparring match so he was not too worried about not learning to heal himself while moving about, even if his entire body was practically screaming in pain. Rathe silenced any complaints, even the internal ones, about pain as he spied Mannis, sand bag thrown over his shoulder, moving about without complaint.


	8. Healing Continues

Happy Holidays everyone!

A/N: As always a huge thanks to my betas!

The sun was halfway between the sky's zenith and the horizon when the instructors told them they could stop. With limbs that felt like jelly, Rathe placed the metal rods back where they belonged. He nodded at Saril and Seki joining them in line for the water, though none of them spoke. Rathe frowned as he tried to figure out if his new allies were simply tired or thinking about what had happened earlier with Mannis but he had not known them long enough to know how their minds worked yet. With a faint shrug, Rathe turned away from his allies, he would come to understand how they thought eventually. He tilted his head to the side as he suddenly realized something, all the fair skinned students in his class were sporting painful looking sunburns. It had not occurred to him that the sun would cause any problem for the other than simply causing the temperature to shoot up during the day. Now that he thought about it, almost all the older human students had tanned or darker skin tones. The few who did not were only a few shades darker than their younger counterparts. _And their older counterpart._ He thought as his eyes darted to Instructor Trevin who, presumably because of spending most of his time in the shade of the buildings, still sported a pale skin tone.

Aside from the sunburnt humans, most of the other students did not seem to be suffering too badly from the effects of the sun. Unsurprisingly, the Zabrak, Rattataki, and some of the Twi'lek children, presumably the ones from Ryloth or some other dry, arid, world, were less affected by the sun. _Some _of the pureblood Sith students, on the other hand, specifically the ones with pink or other light skin tones appeared to be suffering from some discomfort. Rathe himself was not experiencing any discomfort, aside his sweat drenched clothing sticking to his body. He was more than a little relieved to see that Saril was only affected a little bit by the sun, from what he knew of the Chiss homeworld it was a frozen waste, so he would not have to worry about either of his allies possibly having negative reactions from the sun.

Rathe was drawn from his musings about the sun and how it affected students from different races differently as suddenly he realized he was at the front of the line and standing right in front of him was Instructor Uthyn. The sun must have been affecting him more than he thought, for Rathe stood there for a moment blinking up at the larger human. Luckily he was able to recognize what Uthyn was doing when he began to simultaneously extend and turn his hand with a smirk on his face. Snatching the cup out of the instructor's larger hand, Rathe downed the water, and scurried away as an enraged Uthyn took a step forward.

"Uthyn, stop!" Instructor Akiva snapped, successfully halting the larger instructor's advance. "We don't have time to wait while you chase after him." Though Rathe knew her actions were more to make sure they stayed on schedule rather than any kind of protection, Rathe still felt a shred of gratitude towards the Twi'lek woman. The large human leveled a glare at Akiva, but despite his visible anger, did as she asked. Not wanting to move back into Uthyn's reach, Rathe tossed his cup at the table. It hit the metallic surface with a dull thunk, bounced once but didn't fall to the ground.

"That was not the smartest thing to do." Saril said as the three allies regrouped off to the side. "He'll now dislike you even more for embarrassing him in front of everyone.

"Probably." Rathe agreed, glancing back at Uthyn who sported a surly look upon his face.

Both Saril and Seki were shaking their heads when he turned his attention back to them. "Its not a good idea to tug on the Vornskr's tail." Seki nodded towards Uthyn. "Especially one who has already decided to make you its meal."

"So I should just let him get away with making my life miserable because doing anything else will make everything worse?" Rathe asked incredulous. "He's made it clear from day one he doesn't like me, and passively allowing him to get away with screwing with me won't do anything to help the situation." He held up a hand when Seki moved to say something. "I _know_ that doing anything _but_ allow him to mock me or dump my water upon the ground will only make things worse. But doing nothing won't make things easier for me. All it will do is make the other students think I'm weak or easily pushed around." Saril had a look of faint approval upon his face while Seki appeared torn between a look of understanding and apprehension.

Their discussion was interrupted by Instructor Trevin speaking. "And now we move on to the part of the day which I'm sure you all have been looking forward to all day; your daily sparring matches." Though Trevin's voice had a hint of irony, Rathe thought most of the children _had_ been looking forward to their daily sparring match, as these sparring matches were now becoming synonymous with food.

Upon entering the arena, Rathe was unsurprised when his and Kasal's names were the first names called. Despite his best efforts, Rathe was once again beaten by the older boy, though at this point no one was surprised by that outcome. Even Saril and Seki, who were sympathetic, appeared completely unsurprised by his loss. Unlike the previous day, neither offered any platitudes or consolations. This was fine with him as he was more concerned with starting to heal himself. Most of the injuries he had healed earlier had reappeared. Rathe was rather annoyed that he would have to once again heal fractured and broken ribs, but he also recognized that he would have to get used to doing it. Accompanying his injured ribs, was a badly sprained wrist he had received when Kasal had swept his feet out from under him. He felt a morbid sense of excitement, as he looked upon his wrist, since he'd now be healing a new type of injury.

Since his wrist was causing him more than a bit of discomfort, and it would allow him to figure out how to heal a new type of injury, Rathe decided to start the healing process with it. Leaning against the wall, the Sith boy closed his eyes as he mentally reached out for the force, an action that was becoming much easier each time he did it. What he found when he focused the force deep into his injured wrist, was quite interesting in a very morbid way. A number of the ligaments for his wrist had actually been torn away from the bone. That certainly explained why he was unable to bend or move his wrist and yet at the same time, his wrist felt oddly loose. Grabbing the torn ends of the ligaments, Rathe was overcome by pain shooting through the entire length of his arm and across the right side of his body. Jerking back against the wall, a pained gasp emerged from the Sith boy's mouth before he could catch it, garnering looks from Seki and Saril.

"Touched my wrist wrong." He offered, his cheeks darkening in embarrassment. Both glanced at his wrist before glancing at each other, giving him knowing looks before turning their attention back to the current fight. The Sith boy felt slightly embarrassed at having his allies figure him out so quickly, but he consoled himself the recognizing that _they_ would see him taking extra time to heal himself as proof of his initiative, a good counter to the daily beating his image took at the hands of Kasal.

Turning his attention back to the damaged ligaments, Rathe mulled over how he should approach the situation. He'd expected some pain considering the amount he'd felt while healing his bones, but he'd been surprised by the magnitude of the pain. Granted bones weren't as sensitive as the 'threads' of tissue that connected his bones to each other, but if even _touching_ the ligaments caused pain, the healing process would be nearly unbearable. _Unless of course I proceed slowly._ Rathe didn't like the thought of taking his time, preferring to get the job over with as quickly as possible, but if it was the only way he could do it, he was willing to put up with the annoyance.

Gathering himself, Rathe began the process once more, this time applying far less pressure with the force as he grabbed a single ligament thread. This time, instead of lightning shooting through him, it felt more like sparks, still painful but the pain was almost muffled. The process of moving the ligaments was a long one consisting of many pauses as Rathe took multiple breaks to wait for the pain to die down. These breaks were made bearable by him using the time to observe the sparring matches going on, with the breaks coinciding with Saril and Seki's matches being the longest. He felt less concerned about either seeing him as a weak ally as both of them went on to lose their own matches.

Despite moving as slowly and gently as possible, Rathe still found himself biting down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, while using the force to stimulate the healing of the ligaments, the lightning he'd felt earlier turning into molten lava flowing from his wrist. Thankfully, the threads were tiny enough that the healing process was over much quicker than the healing process for his bones. Unfortunately, because he was forced to heal them one at a time and take numerous breaks, he was only just able to fully heal the ligaments and reattach them to the bones by the time the last match was over. He carefully probed his wrist as they exited the arena building, marveling at how different his wrist felt. It still hurt, which led him to believe the bones of his wrist were still broken, but there was no longer that strange loose feeling he'd felt before.

Arriving back at his room, Rathe waited long enough to respond to the room check/roll call before turning his attention back towards healing himself. Returning his attention back to his wrist, Rathe focused on the bones surrounding the ligaments he'd just finished healing, with a bit of probing via the force, he was able to 'see' that 5 out of the eight small bones that made up his wrist had been fractured. Though he had already healed fractures, Rathe was hesitant while healing as he didn't know how much pressure these tiny bones could withstand. Once he figured out what he figured was the maximum amount of pressure that could be used, the process went by much quicker.

As he moved from healing his wrist to healing his ribs, Rathe wondered if he could heal multiple bones at once. He'd previously discovered he could put pressure against the bone from multiple angles, could he do the same to multiple bones? Though it was a bit awkward figuring out how to divide his attention between two objects, he was eventually able to figure it out, though the increased pain from healing or maneuvering two bones at once made it difficult to concentrate. Moving on, he switched from two bones close to each other to two that were further apart, to see if he could heal more than one object regardless of distance. Confirming that he could, Rathe used the two new discoveries to speed up the healing process.

Rathe opened his eyes, staring at the far wall of his room as the last of his ribs were healed. He was panting slightly from pain, covered in sweat, and utterly exhausted. He wasn't sure if he'd used more energy whilst healing than he'd used the day before, or if the exhaustion simply came from him having two healing sessions on top of the grueling physical training. Whatever the case was, he could barely keep his eyes open. As his eyelashes fluttered, Rathe found himself torn between what he should do. Yes, he could give into his body's needs and allow himself to fall asleep, and experience a relatively pain free slumber. Or, he could force himself to stay awake and attempt to heal the remaining source of pain and discomfort; his muscles. The decision was made for him when one moment he was leaning against the wall, and the next, he found himself laying on his side, having nodded off and fallen to the side. Stifling a yawn, Rathe moved to his bed, instantly falling asleep.

All too soon, Rathe was awoken by Trevin's sonic whistle. Feeling incredibly groggy, the Sith boy exited his room rubbing his eyes, wondering exactly how much time he'd spent healing himself the night before to make him feel _this_ tired.

"I see your wrist is better."

Rathe blinked sleepily, looking up at Saril. His eyes moved from the Chiss boy, to the hand he'd been using to rub his eye. The hand attached to the wrist he'd healed the night before. "Yeah. I healed it while everyone was sparring." He replied, awake enough to know to keep his voice low enough for just Saril and Seki to hear.

"I probably should have done that." Seki grumbled, rubbing her shoulder with a grimace. Rathe refrained from commenting. He knew he would need the extra healing time at night as for the foreseeable future, he would be fighting, and be injured by, Kasal. As of yet, neither of his allies seemed to use any time aside from the allotted healing time in the morning, to heal themselves. So, if Seki didn't think she needed the extra healing, despite her shoulder having been almost dislocated the night before, then he wouldn't argue with her. He resolved to comment on it, if he came to believe his allies were allowing too many injuries to carry over from one day to the next, and put the matter to bed.

By the time Rathe got his morning drink of water, he was feeling more awake, and when the cold water entered his system, he awakened even more. Though as his stomach started growling, he half wished he could have remained in his exhausted state a bit longer, if only to have a moment's relief from the constant hunger he felt. Returning the cup, Rathe's mind flashed back to the previous day, to when he'd stolen the drink of water from Uthyn. He wondered how or if the large instructor would make him pay for it today. If Uthyn's previous actions were anything to go on, Rathe figured he'd immediately dump his second daily allotment of water. Once again, Rathe wondered if his actions the previous day had been a good idea, but once again came to the conclusion that yes they had been. If only to prevent himself from looking like a doormat.

As the last student returned their cup, Instructor Akiva began her daily routine of pointing out the injuries various students had. Rathe straightened slightly when her gaze landed on him for a moment, it was hard to read anything aside from malice in her expression, so he couldn't tell what she was thinking as her eyes moved from him to a Zabrak girl next to him. For a moment, Rathe wished he knew what had been going on in her mind when she'd regarded him and realized he'd healed himself, before realizing Instructor Akiva's mind was probably a terrifying place to be.

He was shocked when, towards the end of her scathing commentary, the Instructor called out a student whom Rathe pinned as being at least a third year student. Most of the older students tended to be the victors of their fights, as they tended to be pitted against younger opponents, but whenever one was pitted against a peer or someone from a year above them, the loser, no matter how severe the injuries, had always been rid of their injuries the following day. How badly had the third year been injured that he hadn't been capable of healing himself? Rathe was vaguely annoyed with himself for not knowing if the student still being injured was on account of the severeness of the injuries or lack of skill on the part of the injured student, but seeing as how Kasal was his permanent sparring partner the information was useless to him anyhow.

Soon enough, Akiva was done and the students were allowed to move onto the meditation area. Taking a seat and directing the force towards himself, Rathe took a moment to examine his bones, making absolutely sure he'd healed everything the night before. Occasionally coming across a tiny hairline fracture he'd missed due to exhaustion, that he promptly healed. Once he was sure everything was fully healed, and in the right place, Rathe moved onto his newest task; healing his muscles. Pulling his 'view' back, the Sith boy was greeted with the image of his muscular structure.

From his current view, his muscles looked like thick, solid, slabs of meat that were bisected by ligaments. On closer examination, though, he could see and feel that some of the muscles had different consistencies to them. The muscles that were attached to or surrounded his bones did feel exactly as he'd though; like slabs of meat he'd eaten in the past, though they were far thicker than any steak he'd ever eaten. The muscles that surrounded his stomach, intestines, and other similar organs looked similar to the skeletal ones, but they were incredibly flexible to the point of almost being as bouncy as a spring. Considering the organs they surrounded, their flexibility made sense as they needed to be able to expand and contract as they filled with food or water. The last group of muscles that had their own unique look and feel to them, were the muscles surrounding his heart. These muscles, upon being touched, revealed themselves to feel nearly as thick as his bones did. Rathe took a few moments to watch his heart beat, utterly fascinated by how the organ was able to perform its job without any input from him at all. He made a mental note to do a more thorough examination of his organs at another time so he could know what his heart and other organs looked like when functioning normally, to be able to better identify any kind of problem with them quickly.

Moving onto the task at hand, Rathe directed his attention to the muscles in his legs. From how they ached, he expected the muscles to look like they'd been torn apart by a knife or some other blade. Instead, there was nothing. They merely looked like the rest of his muscles, solid and healthy. It was only when he moved his gaze closer and the tissue of his muscles looked like string or twine wrapped together that he saw what was causing the pain he'd been feeling. All along these strings of tissue were tiny little tears, giving them almost a shredded look. At first, Rathe was concerned that there was actually a problem, and that he'd actually injured himself, but calmed when he found tears in the muscles of his arms and abdomen.

Because of his previous experiences with healing, he expected a great amount of pain to accompany the act of simply touching the injured areas with the force. If there was any pain, Rathe couldn't differentiate it from the throbbing pain already coming from his limbs. Encouraged, he began quickly healing the tears in his leg muscles, feeling exuberant when inch by inch the pain diminished in his legs until finally it was gone. Repeating the same process on the rest of his muscles, Rathe was soon free of pain.

Opening his eyes, Rathe was tempted to jump up and start moving about, but refrained from doing so as he'd be moving about that all too soon anyway, and the other students were still in the midst of healing themselves. So, Rathe took a moment to do something he hadn't been able to since he'd arrived; nothing. He just sat there, silently staring at the ground in front of him. It was nice to not have to think about anything for a short while. The novelty of being able to do nothing quickly went away as Rathe realized just how boring it was to do nothing. As strange as it sounded, a part of him almost wished he hadn't done as good of a of healing himself the night before, if only so he could have spent more time sleeping and given himself something to do right at that moment. Perhaps that was why the older students didn't fully heal themselves during the night? Because they'd stumbled upon the problem he was currently facing.

Utterly bored Rathe began thinking up ways to keep himself occupied. First, he turned his attention to the blisters that had formed on his hands and feet over the course of the past two days. He hadn't done anything to them as although they were annoying, they hadn't been as big of an issue as his actually injuries had been. In contrast to his previous healing attempts, during this one, Rathe kept his eyes open. Watching in fascination as the liquid filled bumps on the palms of his hands and fingers drained of liquid before slowly shrinking and disappearing. Although he couldn't see the ones on the soles of his feet and ankles, he imagined that they were doing the same. Carefully prodding the palms of his hands, Rathe was amazed by how smooth they were.

His admiration of his now blister free hands was cut short when Instructor Trevin called an end to that day's meditation session. Standing, the Sith boy joined Saril and Seki, marveling once more at the lack of pain in his legs as he walked. All too soon though, his muscles began aching as he completed circuit after circuit around the area. By the time the exercise session was called to an end, Rathe's muscles ached as badly as they had before he'd healed them. The Sith boy felt a bit annoyed at how it seemed like healing himself didn't really matter, but recognized that the healing would show improvement in the long term rather than the short.

As the number of students between him and Uthyn shortened, Rathe began to get nervous. He knew the large human remembered how his attempt at amusement had been foiled the day before, and was unsure what he would do as payback. Seeing as how Uthyn had backed himself into a corner in terms of how he could get revenge of Rathe, his schitck of permanently pitting Rathe against Kasal kept him from using the sparring matches as punishment, left very few opportunities for embarrassing Rathe. When he reached the front of the line, Rathe felt a tad relieved when all Uthyn did was dump the cup of water onto the ground with little fanfare. Rathe had been half convinced Uthyn would have slipped something into the water, but even though the other two instructors seemed to show very little concern over Uthyn's treatment of him, Rathe had a feeling they'd draw the line at outright poisoning him. At least, he hoped they'd draw the line at that.

The now daily sparring match between Rathe and Kasal ended the same way it always did, with the human standing victoriously over Rathe. The Sith boy returned to the crowd of students prodding at the spot where a tooth had resided in his mouth before the blond human had knocked it out. Luckily, it had been a baby tooth as Rathe did not look forward to figuring out how to heal a tooth, let alone having to spend time looking for said tooth. As the taste of copper filled his mouth, Rathe began the cycle of healing, injury, and healing he'd created for himself.


End file.
